Source: Radio Netherlands
By: Andy Clark in the Hague
[I don’t think this will hurt us here in the US. -Ed.]
The Dutch Justice Minister Hirsch Ballin is considering the best way to ban animal pornography. It’s currently legal here in the Netherlands, as is sex with animals and a way to ban both is now being sought.
Experts say that because of the lax rules, the Netherlands is the biggest distributor of this sort of pornographic material in the world. It’s a market which has grown massively since the arrival of the Internet and parliament now wants to bring an end to this dubious practice.
Agenda
The Party for the Animals has become a political force in the Netherlands since the last election and is putting animal rights high on the political agenda. Party leader Marianna Thieme is insistent that animals shouldn’t be sexually abused and exploited for commercial gain:
“Like child porn, animal porn is a disturbed human behaviour that we must not tolerate because it’s causing suffering for animals and we have to protect them.”
No one knows for sure on what scale animal pornography is produced here, but it’s in little doubt that the Netherlands is the world’s biggest player when it comes to distributing this sort of material.
Campaigning
Labour Party MP Harm Evert Waalkens has long campaigned to get a ban on sex with animals and animal pornography.
“There are some estimates that 65 percent [of the] trade of these animal porno sites are created in the Netherlands – in that way we are a top country in this perversity.”
Recent newspaper articles in the Netherlands show that as well as hosting a majority of these websites – between 50 and 70 percent according to various estimates – DVD distribution is also largely in Dutch hands.
An inventory of 1500 such films carried out by the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper showed 80 percent were distributed by Dutch companies.
For the rest of this story go to www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/por070413 which is linked in the box to the right.
