If the deputy minister for home affairs has his way, South African television stations could be banned soon from showing Adult entertainment that is not classified by the country's Film and Publications Board.
Reports from the South African press indicate Malusi Gigaba highlighted the prospective ban among several measures being considered as Home Affairs tries to answer what it calls a "worrisome" spike in child porn and violence against children.
"I know it may cause a lot of controversy and fights," Gigaba was quoted as saying in the South African press. "But the only movies that TV cannot play are those that are already classified as XX by the board."
Gigaba – who told reporters his own four-year-old daughter had caught a look at porn on one television station – said that porn has an adverse effect on children and accessing it is too easy when both children's homes and Adult stores take few if any precautions to keep kids from seeing it.
He also said that aside from the question of "creating moral decay," porn in his view is used by pedophiles to groom kids for child porn.
"The little that we know indicates that [child porn] exists and is escalating in our country; that it is very closely linked to poverty; that South Africa is seen as a huge market for this crime; and that a lack of public awareness and regulations for Internet service providers exacerbates it," Gigaba said.
Currently, South African television stations regulate themselves and can buy Adult films unregulated by the FPB, but Gigaba hopes South Africa's Parliament passes an amendment to the country's Film and Publications Act that would hike child porn sentences from five years maximum to 10 years and regulate Internet service providers.
Gigaba's department now also wants to put television stations under the regulations that cover movie theaters, saying that films on television fall outside the FPB's reach and the stations thus have all but a license to flout the Film and Publications Act by showing adult films at "inappropriate" times.
Acting FPB chief executive Iyavar Chetty said the board holds that only one authority should deal with classifying films, and the problem is that television stations are not now mandated to submit the films they plan to show for classification.
"This leaves it open so they can, in fact, purchase films which have not been seconded to the board and which might fall under XX or X18 categories," Chetty said.
"It's just there," Gigaba said about porn hitting television so liberally. "The only option is to switch off the TV or go to Cartoon Network."
