Policy Advocacy

The Bill was drafted by Justice Alliance of South Africa (JASA), an anti-gay, anti-choice organisation. The countries mentioned by JASA as having enacted similar legislation to the proposal Bill – Yemen and the United Arab Emirates – both censor LGBT as well as political content that they deem undesirable.

Taking into consideration the social context within which laws operate in South Africa, where violence against lesbian women and transgender people is common, “a law focusing on sexual content is likely to see content that focuses on lesbian sexuality or even women’s sexuality as deviant and undesirable” says Shackleton.

“The Law Reform Commission in South Africa, tasked with investigating internet pornography should consider freeing up funds from the Universal Access Fund to promote positive content by women and for women,” says Shackleton. “That way we tip the balance of content in favour of more positive representations of women and more diversity.”

“The Law Reform Commission’s investigation at the very least must be framed by considering that children and women are not the same entity. Children are a separate category of people that require very different legislative approaches than those addressing women,” Shackleton concludes.

Durante la última década, internet ha sido censurada y su contenido regulado por múltiples motivos, pero la razón principal invocada por gobiernos de todo el espectro geopolítico ha sido el sexo – o el “contenido sexual perjudicial”.

Esta síntesis de prensa preparada por APC examina que tipos de contenido sexual se encuentran en internet y su importancia en relación al derecho a la libertad de expresión y el derecho a la información de las personas.Debido a que el contenido sexual y la conducta relacionada con lo sexual en línea actúa como disparador de intervención estatal y de otro tipo, el PARM de APC lleva adelante el proyecto de investigación EroTICs sobre la forma en que diferentes personas en diversas partes del mundo utilizan internet en relación a la sexualidad. EroTICs es apoyado por la Fundación Ford. Los resultados finales se publicarán a fines de 2010, pero los primeros resultados ya están en línea

Over the last decade, the internet has been censored and content regulated and the principal reason cited by governments across all geopolitical spectrums has been sex – or “harmful sexual content”. But online sexual content ranges from information on sexual health to fighting sexual violence and can also be very important to people’s right to freedom of expression and right to information.

This APC media brief examines regulation and censorship of sexual content as part of APC WNSP’s Exploratory Research on Internet and Sexuality (EroTICs) on how different people in different parts of the world are really using the internet related to sex. Results will be published at the end of 2010 but initial findings are now online
The EroTICs research is being carried out with support from the Ford Foundation.

What is the linkage between sexuality and the internet? Why is the protection of users from the ‘harm’ of pornographic content often the principal reason given to regulate the flow of information and exchange over the internet? How does it work in reality, and how does it impact on our ability to access information, form relationships, build communities, create knowledge and exercise self-determination in terms of our sexuality and sexual rights?

Media issues and ICTs (information and communication technologies) should not be viewed in isolation, nor subjected to the logic of static hierarchies, says Magaly Pazello in her editorial for GenderIT.org’s “Sexuality and the Internet” edition. Both authoritarian governments and participative democracies have defended the false idea that we must choose between rights/freedom and responsibility/protection. Often used to justify this contradiction, gender and sexuality are at the heart of policies to regulate the internet

Heike Jensen, researcher and lecturer at the Department of Gender Studies of Humboldt University in Berlin (Germany) and APC WNSP member, takes this view of Section J at the 54th Commission on the Status of Women: “[The J Spot] seems to prove almost as elusive as locating its embodied cousin has turned out to be. First of all, you will not find the J Spot in this year’s intergovernmental and other official debates or proposed resolutions.

Jac sm Kee, the Women’s Rights and ICT Policy coordinator for APC WNSP, reviews the UN Secretary-General’s report on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (E/CN.6/2010/2) and assess how close we are to realizing women’s right to communicate: “I wasn’t present at the Beijing Conference in 1995, and having missed it, I feel like I have missed out on one of the most important moments in the history of the women’s movement. From the stories I hear, it was truly a time when change not only felt possible, but was a tangible foothold away”.