- Youngsters aged 16 and 17 should have the right to watch
and appear in explicit pornography, the British Liberal Democrats decided
yesterday.
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- The proposed relaxation in the law was agreed by a huge
majority at the party's spring conference in Southport, despite pleas from
one of its most prominent MPs, the work and pensions spokesman, Steve Webb,
who argued for keeping the present age limit of 18.
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- The vote also commits the party to campaigning for teenagers
from 16 upwards to be allowed to visit sex shops, which would be made easier
to set up and run. The party's culture spokesman, Don Foster, said that
it was inconsistent to allow 16-year-olds to have children, and be treated
as adults in other respects, but to bar them from watching or taking part
in explicit material - which they could access, anyway, from the internet.
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- Mr Foster rejected what he called "misleading claims"
that young people become violent just from watching violent images.
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- He described 16- and 17-year-olds as "living in
a twilight zone between childhood and adulthood", gaining different
rights at different ages.
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- Mr Foster said that bestiality, "snuff" movies
and depictions of rape would continue to be illegal, and that the law should
continue to protect those under 16. He also argued for laws against material
that degraded women, and for protecting employees from exploitation.
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- But Professor Webb retorted: "The question we should
be asking is not whether the most mature 16-year-old can deal with the
most explicit material.
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- "The question is whether the least mature 16-year-old
can deal with the most explicit material."
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- He also suggested that if 16-year-olds had access to
"the most violent, the most degrading" material then their 15-year-old
classmates would see it as well.
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- The vote was condemned by the Conservative Party co-chairman,
Dr Liam Fox, who said: "This irresponsible policy is likely to lead
to the exploitation of young people and it adds to the many ridiculous
policies the Liberal Democrats have dreamed up over recent years.
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- "With all the problems facing Britain, the Liberal
Democrats have once again chosen to focus on the absurd and the obscure,
and their muddled approach reveals them to be sad and irrelevant."
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=503464
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