Ukrainian Lawmakers Want to Decriminalize Porn

KYIV—Lawmakers in Ukraine want to decriminalize pornography to further push a reformist agenda, despite the ongoing violence of the war with Russia, reports the Kyiv Post.  Yaroslav Zheleznyak, a lawmaker within Ukraine's unicameral Verkhovna Rada (literally the Supreme Council), is the one leading the charge to change existing Soviet Union-era pornography prohibitions. The current law is “nothing short of stupidity,” Zheleznyak told Kyiv Post journalist Kateryna Zakharchenko in the August 17 report.  His proposal, which has collected enough signatures to become a draft law, is additionally a bid to cut law enforcement expenditures associated with prosecuting cam models and OnlyFans creators, as well as to curb extortion by corrupt police officers. “From the Soviet Union times, we inherited this norm that one can get up to eight years behind bars if this one happens to send their nudes to another person,” Zheleznyak said.  According to the independent Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO), basic statutes on pornography are based on an international document over 100 years old.  That document is the International Convention for the Suppression of the Circulation of and Traffic in Obscene Publications. This was an early international treaty attempting to require the prohibition of pornographic and obscene materials. Most countries have not adopted this treaty, with several other states altogether denouncing its anti-pornography provisions.  “[BRDO] calculated that in 2021, law enforcement officers spent about 85,500 working hours on cases related to the distribution of porn. This is approximately a year of daily work without holidays by 41 investigators,” Zheleznyak noted on his Telegram channel.  An explanatory note attached to the draft law states that 704,667 people received a court summons in 2022 for charges related to Article 301 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code. Article 301 pertains to pornography consumption.