Laila Dåvøy, Minister of Children and Family Affairs, Norway

Introduction to workshop " Pornophication of Public Space"

Third Baltic Sea Womens Conference on WoMen and Democracy, Tallin 13. -14. February 2003

You are all most welcome to this workshop which aim to focus on how pornographic images are increasingly invading public space through all kinds of media and advertising as well as the entertainment and the fashion industry. I find it very exciting that so many attend to this workshop, and look forward to the discussion. We will allow three speakers to give their experiences before then.

First, I like to introduce myself. I am minister in the Norwegian Ministry of Children and Family Affairs, dealing with policy concerned to families, children, youth, consumers, and gender equality.

Secondly I will like to present my co-chair for these two days, Ilona Ceica from Latvia. Ilona will say something more about herself tomorrow, introducing the workshop. Until then, know that she is a lawyer with knowledge in at least four languages!

She will also be in charge for the continuance of this workshop tomorrow, and

she will present our appeals in the plenary session tomorrow evening.

I would like to emphasise that I am a minister for gender equality, and that gender equality is a key word for reaching democracy and human rights. From my point of view, pornography as such is a threat against both women`s and men´s dignity, self-respect and equality. Pornography is the opposite of care, love and affection, and is in the wrong end of erotica.

Saying this, I know that there excist an opinion that pornography can be of value for some people, people that for instance do not have a life that includes a partner, because of illness or disability. We have to ask if this is important enough to allow the pornographic industry to overflow the marked.

Overhead:

In short the problems are that pornography is

l) a)Present in everyday life – b) Accepted as a cultural phenomena –

c) Earlier you had to choose actively – today you must be active to prevent

Porn in your everyday life, d) internet facilitate porn and protect

The anonymity of the users.

I would also like to show some results from three surveys.

2. Danish survey about having. Seen porn the last year.
3. Danish survey towards youngsters 13 – 15 years – where did they get the best sex guidance.
4. Norwegian survey towards young people in Oslo 18 – 19 years old – having seen porn.

Maybe the most important reason to fight this industry, is the impact it might have on children and youth. In Norway, my government last year put forward a proposal for a new gender equality act. Now all kind of sexual harassment are forbidden, and among others all pre-schools and schools are obliged to work out plans for how to avoid it and how to help victims and to deal with the perpetrator. In this matter, we have to understand that pornography in fact legitimate sexual harassment. Women in pornography is supposed to like being perpetrated and treated like an object by several men, the word no does not exist, and they accept whatever men want them to do. These are signals that we can not allow!

What have Norway done in this matter? In many ways, Norway still is a country with less pornography available in public space, for instance we have regulations that do not allow pornography shown in cinemas or television, we have set age limits for all videos and data-games to rent or buy. This does not mean that I find it unimportant to deal with this, pornography finds its ways into public space through a lot of other channels, Internet, on MTV and the fact that sex and pornography are easy to find in ordinary videoshops and on pay-television and Internet in homes. So measures have to be taken. One important step, which I will work on, is to introduce an arrangement for concessions to regulate the retail sale of computer games.

In Norway my ministry has made an action plan where we, among other things,

make these priorities:

1. Producing an action plan about Children, Youth and Internet, with focus on child pornography, an interactive educational program for pupils and teachers
2. Give regulations of movies, videograms and computer games
3. Give ethical rules for use of Internet in schools.

The European Union has paid attention to the plan for Children, Youth and Internet, and will contribute with money to a follow up on this work. This is encouraging.

(Introducing Overheads)

I would also like to emphasize that:

5 overhead) – trafficed women are used in the making of extreme hardcore porn

• pornography offers a massive obstacle to women`s freedom
• porn trains men/boys to see women/girls as objects for delight
• porn industry constiutes a serious challenge to the possibility of equality