Pornography in Albania is not restricted. It is only illegal for producing, delivering, advertising, importing, selling and publishing pornographic material under the age of 18. Child pornography is prohibited, [1] but Albania has failed to adopt laws against the publishing, manufacturing, accessing, dissemination and the expansion of child pornography. [2] Internet pornography is legal.
Article 117 of Albania's Criminal Code states that people who distribute and/or publish child pornography can be fined or sent to jail for two years. [3]
The government has been taking measures in protecting children from sex exploitation. [4]
About 40% of the Albanian population are below the age of 25, and approximately 750,000 children are under 14 years of age. Children are vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation due to lack of awareness and education, minority discrimination, reoccurring domestic violence and child marriage practices, and the position of women in Albania. being subordinate to men. Child trafficking is a concern; children, especially girls, are trafficked. [2]
Young children can easily access pornography online, and parental control apps are limited in Albania. Nearly half of children watch porn daily, with Facebook being one of the most common websites for children to view porn. [3]
Child pornography is usually accessed through mobile phones, and distribution of pornographic materials is usually via Bluetooth. Internet usage has been increasingly common, [2] but Albania has been behind in promoting awareness of child internet safety and only recently the education system is now promoting awareness and giving information on internet safety in schools. [4]
Child sex tourism (CST) is tourism for the purpose of engaging in the prostitution of children, which is commercially facilitated child sexual abuse. The definition of child in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is "every human being below the age of 18 years". Child sex tourism results in both mental and physical consequences for the exploited children, which may include sexually transmitted infections, "drug addiction, pregnancy, malnutrition, social ostracism, and death", according to the State Department of the United States. Child sex tourism, part of the multibillion-dollar global sex tourism industry, is a form of child prostitution within the wider issue of commercial sexual exploitation of children. Child sex tourism victimizes approximately 2 million children around the world. The children who perform as prostitutes in the child sex tourism trade often have been lured or abducted into sexual slavery.
Definitions and restrictions on pornography vary across jurisdictions. The production, distribution, and possession of pornographic films, photographs, and similar material are activities that are legal in many but not all countries, providing that any specific people featured in the material have consented to being included and are above a certain age. Various other restrictions often apply as well. The minimum age requirement for performers is most typically 18 years.
Sexual grooming is the action or behavior used to establish an emotional connection with a vulnerable person – generally a minor under the age of consent – and sometimes the victim's family, to lower their inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse. It can occur in various settings, including online, in person, and through other means of communication. Children who are groomed may experience mental health issues, including "anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and suicidal thoughts."
Pornography has been dominated by a few pan-European producers and distributors, the most notable of which is the Private Media Group that successfully claimed the position previously held by Color Climax Corporation in the early 1990s. Most European countries also have local pornography producers, from Portugal to Serbia, who face varying levels of competition with international producers. The legal status of pornography varies widely in Europe; its production and distribution are illegal in countries such as Ukraine, Belarus and Bulgaria, while Hungary has liberal pornography laws.
The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, USA, with a regional presence in the United Kingdom, Europe, Turkey, Africa, Canada, Latin America, Caribbean, Southeast Asia, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Australasia, is a private 501(c)(3) non-governmental, nonprofit global organization. It combats child sexual exploitation, child pornography, child trafficking and child abduction.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), previously known as Morality in Media and Operation Yorkville, is an American conservative anti-pornography organization. The group has also campaigned against sex trafficking, same-sex marriage, sex shops and sex toys, decriminalization of sex work, comprehensive sex education, and various works of literature or visual arts the organization has deemed obscene, profane or indecent. Its current president is Patrick A. Trueman. The organization describes its goal as "exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation".
Internet censorship in the United Kingdom is conducted under a variety of laws, judicial processes, administrative regulations and voluntary arrangements. It is achieved by blocking access to sites as well as the use of laws that criminalise publication or possession of certain types of material. These include English defamation law, the Copyright law of the United Kingdom, regulations against incitement to terrorism and child pornography.
Amateur pornography is a category of pornography that features models, actors or non-professionals performing without pay, or actors for whom this material is not their only paid modeling work. Reality pornography is professionally made pornography that seeks to emulate the style of amateur pornography. Amateur pornography has been called one of the most profitable and long-lasting genres of pornography.
Legal frameworks around fictional pornography depicting minors vary depending on country and nature of the material involved. Laws against production, distribution, and consumption of child pornography generally separate images into three categories: real, pseudo, and virtual. Pseudo-photographic child pornography is produced by digitally manipulating non-sexual images of real minors to make pornographic material. Virtual child pornography depicts purely fictional characters. "Fictional pornography depicting minors," as covered in this article, includes these latter two categories, whose legalities vary by jurisdiction, and often differ with each other and with the legality of real child pornography.
Internet pornography is any pornography that is accessible over the Internet; primarily via websites, FTP connections, peer-to-peer file sharing, or Usenet newsgroups. The greater accessibility of the World Wide Web from the late 1990s led to an incremental growth of Internet pornography, the use of which among adolescents and adults has since become increasingly popular.
An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin obscēnus, obscaenus, "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Generally, the term can be used to indicate strong moral repugnance and outrage in expressions such as "obscene profits" and "the obscenity of war". As a legal term, it usually refers to descriptions and depictions of people engaged in sexual and excretory activity.
In the United States, child pornography is illegal under federal law and in all states and is punishable by up to life imprisonment and fines of up to $250,000. U.S. laws regarding child pornography are virtually always enforced and amongst the sternest in the world. The Supreme Court of the United States has found child pornography to be outside the protections of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Federal sentencing guidelines on child pornography differentiate between production, distribution, and purchasing/receiving, and also include variations in severity based on the age of the child involved in the materials, with significant increases in penalties when the offense involves a prepubescent child or a child under the age of 18. U.S. law distinguishes between pornographic images of an actual minor, realistic images that are not of an actual minor, and non-realistic images such as drawings. The latter two categories are legally protected unless found to be obscene, whereas the first does not require a finding of obscenity.
In Canada, child pornography is illegal under Section 163.1 of the Criminal Code and is punishable by up to ten or fourteen years of imprisonment depending on the offence. The Supreme Court of Canada has found child pornography, including the simple possession of child pornography, to not be protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In October 2024, a private member's bill was passed which generally retitles references to "child pornography" as "child sexual abuse material". This law is set to take effect in October 2025. Some current law is unenforceable to the extent of exemptions carved out by the Supreme Court of Canada in R v Sharpe.
Child pornography is illegal in most countries, but there is substantial variation in definitions, categories, penalties, and interpretations of laws. Differences include the definition of "child" under the laws, which can vary with the age of sexual consent; the definition of "child pornography" itself, for example on the basis of medium or degree of reality; and which actions are criminal. Laws surrounding fictional child pornography are a major source of variation between jurisdictions; some maintain distinctions in legality between real and fictive pornography depicting minors, while others regulate fictive material under general laws against child pornography.
Child pornography is erotic material that depicts persons under the designated age of majority. The precise characteristics of what constitutes child pornography varies by criminal jurisdiction.
Enough Is Enough is an American anti-pornography non-profit organization. It carries out lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C., and played a role in the passage of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, the Child Online Protection Act of 1998, and the Children's Internet Protection Act of 2000. The group is based in the Commonwealth of Virginia. They sometimes refer to themselves acronymically as EIE.
Pornography in Asia includes pornography created in Asia, watched in Asia, or consumed or displayed in other parts of the world as one or more of the genres of Asian pornography.
The production and distribution of pornography in Bulgaria is illegal. Pornography films and online distribution of sexual content are illegal. Bulgaria lacks pornographic production companies. However, people are allowed to watch and download pornographic videos, they just cannot sell or create pornography. Accessing, possessing or storing pornographic materials is not illegal, with the exception of child pornography.
Cybersex trafficking, live streaming sexual abuse, webcam sex tourism/abuse or ICTs -facilitated sexual exploitation is a cybercrime involving sex trafficking and the live streaming of coerced sexual acts and/or rape on webcam.
The Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act, commonly known as Bill S-210, and formerly as Bill S-203, is a Senate public bill introduced by Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne in the 44th Canadian Parliament. The bill would make it a criminal offence for organizations to allow Internet users under the age of 18 to access sexually explicit material for commercial purposes, unless the organization employs an age verification system, or the material has a legitimate artistic, educational, or scientific purpose. The bill also gives the government the ability to obtain court orders for internet service providers to block access to websites that do not follow compliance notices issued under the law.
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