Govt needs to tackle pornography virus

 I WISH to express my views on how pornography is adversely affecting Papua New Guinea. 

As we all know, production, consumption and distribution of pornography is illegal in PNG. 

But since the sale of bemobile and Digicel modems and mobile phones, pornography is easily accessible by children and youths at anytime from anywhere. 

Children and school students are accessing pornographic materials from their mobile phones, workers are accessing porn in their offices and others are accessing porn using modems via their personal computers. 

Access to pornographic images and information is widely available and people who view them are easily evading police with the aid of the advanced technology.  

It is my view that pornography is out of control in PNG. 

It is beyond the control of law enforcing agencies such as the police and national censorship board. 

It is hard for them to curb pornography. This is a wakeup call for Papua New Guineans and the national government. 

The negative impacts of pornography in any society, including children, are deep and wide.

Empirical studies conducted and our common experiences and even common sense tell us that pornography is not good for  society. 

Men and women have lost their human dignity and respect because the porn industry makes them believe that sex is a commodity that can be traded on the market. 

One of the negative impacts of porn images is that computer engineers tell us that images or pictures take up more space in a computer’s memory than mere words. 

In a like manner, if a child or student accesses porn images frequently, these images occupy more space in their brain and this greatly affects the students’ memory. 

The invasion of pornography is giving a hard time to teach  youths about responsible sex. 

In the past, it was the issue of boyfriends or girlfriends, but today the challenge is dealing with teenage sex and unwanted pregnancies because of the influence of porn.

The magnitude and the extent of the spread of pornography in PNG requires the attention of the government. 

The government must look into this and revise our information technology policies and related laws and inroduce legislative control to deter the flow of pornographic images coming to the shores of PNG. 

Pastor Mamando Pain

Mt Hagen