Writes Aeon, Content Writer, Headline Diplomat eMagazine, LUDCI.eu
The Netherlands has long been known for its leniency on several drug and sexual issues, but decisions allowing pro-pedophile groups to proliferate and spread their message is creating a slippery slope to the legalization of pedophilia.
The Brotherly Love, Freedom and Diversity Party wants to change the age of consent from 16 to 12, legalize child pornography, allow pornography on daytime television, violent pornography allowed in the evening, allow children over 16 to appear in adult films, and allow sex with animals, according to The Guardian.
The political party can have its own candidates after the courts deemed the party legal. Calls to disband The Martijn Foundation, a group that wants to legalize sex between adults and children, were rebuked when the courts found the group did nothing illegal.
“While a number of its members have been jailed on child pornography charges, the court found that the words and photographs on the organization’s website did not break any laws,” according to The Independent.
In another crushing blow, calls make a more than 1,000-page book known as The Pedophile Manual illegal were brought down because, according to prosecutors, there was nothing illegal in the book. It details how to lure, groom, and abuse children without anyone knowing.
The impact of sexual contact with children reaches far beyond the immediate and can follow them throughout their life. Legalizing sexual acts with children as young as 12 would be a serious mistake and lead to an entire generation of adults plagued by physical and psychological issues.
“Sexual abuse of (very) young children can have serious effects in the long term. An abused child will suffer these effects for the rest of their life,” National Lawyer’s Network for the Victims of Violence and Sexual Offences Richard Korver told The Independent.
Studies from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse showed that children subjected to child sexual abuse often suffered anxiety, depression, anger, and low self-esteem. They harbor feelings of guilt and shame and are more likely to endure sexual abuse as an adult.
According to The Long-Term Effects of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Counseling Implications on Counseling.org, “Survivors often experience guilt, shame, and self-blame. It has been shown that survivors frequently take personal responsibility for the abuse. When the sexual abuse is done by an esteemed trusted adult it may be hard for the children to view the perpetrator in a negative light, thus leaving them incapable of seeing what happened as not their fault.
Survivors often blame themselves and internalize negative messages about themselves. Survivors tend to display more self-destructive behaviors and experience more suicidal ideation than those who have not been abused.
Body issues and eating disorders have also been cited as a long-term effect of childhood sexual abuse. Ratican describes the symptoms of child sexual abuse survivors’ body image problems to be related to feeling dirty or ugly, dissatisfaction with body or appearance, eating disorders, and obesity. Survivors’ distress may also result in somatic concerns. A study found that women survivors reported significantly more medical concerns than did people who have not experienced sexual abuse.”
Conclusion:
Pedophilia is not a normal behavior or a legal act. Any group or person that wants you to believe that having sex with a child and possessing child pornography is normal behavior is simply doing this for their own purposes and their close acquaintances. Paedophilia is the product of deviant minds that have long-lasting consequences for their child victims.
If this mindset of normalisation continues, it will lead to an increase in child trafficking and a decrease in prosecution. We urge all countries to not only prosecute pedophilia as a crime against humanity as per United Nations regulation but also create stricter laws that help save our children.
Featured photo by Dziana Hasanbekava, Pexels
