Just over one year ago, the government of Nepal slapped a ban on internet porn, as AVN.com reported, blocking a reported 25,000 sites. The move came in response to a rise in sexual assault cases in the South Asian county—even though, as critics of the ban in Nepal were quick to point out, credible evidence linking porn to increased incidents if sexual violence is essentially non-existent.
In fact, as AVN.com reported last week, one recent study showed no connection at all between viewing porn and increased levels of sexual aggression in teenage boys.
Nonetheless, Nepal went ahead with the ban, leveling stiff fines of approximately $4,200 on internet service providers that failed to adequately filter out porn sites. The average annual per capita income in Nepal is only about $1,000.
A full 13 months after the government imposed the porn ban, a new report by the Nepalese news site Annapurna Express, little has changed. Nepalese porn surfers have actually been watching even more porn than a year ago, Annapurna Express reported, based on data provided to it by xHamster.
In fact, according to research by the Nepalese news site, internet users based in Nepal visit porn sites more often than they visit any of the country’s news portals.
In a more disturbing, but unsurprising finding, the site found that the porn ban has done nothing to curb rising levels of sexual violence in Nepal—at least not on the country’s bustling capital of Kathmandu, which with its population of roughly 1 million is home to one of every 30 Nepalese residents.
In the year since the ban, reported rape cases have climbed from 145 to 225.
“The ban was a risky and self-serving bet,” wrote Annapurna Express reporter Akriti Manandhar. “Instead of working to improve law and order and giving better sex education, the government chose the easiest and the most impractical way out of the social problems it encountered.”
Photo By Soman / Wikimedia Commons
