A new UN report disguises a call for decriminalization of pedophiles

The report calls for decriminalization of all forms of "sexual activity", including what until recently was considered taboo. What does it mean and why is it disguised? The Overton Window is wide open

A new UN report calls for the decriminalization of all forms of sexual activity globally, including between adults and children.

The report, written by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) based in Switzerland, in collaboration with the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), was published on International Women's Day, with the aim of guiding "the application of international human rights law to criminal law", according to a press release published by UNAIDS.

The report, known as the 'March 8 Principles', calls for the decriminalization of offenses related to sex, drug use, HIV, sexual and reproductive health, homelessness and poverty. The authors of the report claim that the criminalization of offenses related to these issues constitutes a "violation of human rights".

But it turns out that in this apparently liberal UN report, published on a day that celebrates "liberalism" - there is a call for the legalization of sexual activity between adults and children, in other words, of pedophilia.

This dramatic call is not overt. It is disguised between the lines of the report, crawling between expressions such as "human rights" and "children's rights". But there is no mistaking the clear demand in it: to eliminate the criminalization of sexual activity of adults with minors, as long as the minors "consent".

 "In this context, the enforcement of criminal law should reflect the rights and capacity of persons under 18 years of age to make decisions about engaging in consensual sexual conduct and their right to be heard in matters concerning them," the report states.

 Instead, according to the report's authors, the laws should reflect the " evolving capacities and progressive autonomy" of minors to participate in sexual acts.

Can children "consent" to sexual relations with an adult? In criminal law, the age of consent is the age at which a person is considered an adult for the purpose of giving legal consent to having sex with a partner. Having sex with a partner who is younger than the age of consent is considered a criminal offense. The idea behind the age of consent laws is that children are not legally competent to make a responsible decision about whether to engage in sexual activity, especially when it comes to activity with an older partner. In most countries, the age of consent for sex is currently in the range between 14-16, while in the United States, the range is 16-18, depending on the country, and in Israel it is 16, regardless of the age of the partner, and from age 14 as long as the age gap is not higher than three years.

However, according to the report, any sexual behavior that involves persons "below the prescribed minimum age of consent in domestic law" can be defined as "consensual in fact", even if the law states that it is not. In fact, the report challenges the age of consent laws.

Worse, the authors refer to "persons under 18", but do not even set a lower limit for the age of the children involved in the "sexual activity". And what if it is a 6-year-old child? A 3-year-old? In fact, the report completely ignores all the conditions established in the criminal law that are intended to prevent the exploitation of children, while perhaps allowing relationships between teenagers - the condition for a minimum age and the condition for a certain age gap between the partners for sexual activity.

Furthermore, the report even claims that the existing criminal laws on these issues are wrong since they rely "upon claims of cultural, traditional or community values or religious beliefs, or stated threats to the rights and reputation of others, national security, public order, public morals or public health". Such claims are not legitimate, claim the authors of the report.

"Criminal law is among the harshest of tools at the disposal of the State to exert control over individuals...as such, it ought to be a measure of last resort however, globally, there has been a growing trend towards overcriminalization", said Ian Seiderman, director of law and policy at the ICJ, in a press release. "We must acknowledge that these laws not only violate human rights, but the fundamental principles of criminal law themselves."

However, the criminal law in this area, and the punishment as a result of it, has a unique meaning, not only as a deterrent, but in creating the "mark of Cain". Therefore, the meaning of non-criminalization is the removal of the denunciation, and the exposure of more children to exploitation by that person.

"Consensual" sex or laundering pedophilia? The Overton Window is wide open

In terms of the Overton Window, the new report actually represents a shift of the issue of pedophilia from the place where it was previously seen as taboo and illegitimate, and therefore is actually outside the discourse window - to the other extreme end of the window - when it promotes the legitimization and normalization of the issue to the point where politicians are no longer afraid to promote it publicly.

How did things come to this? Of course, it didn't happen in one day. Moving the window is always gradual - this is one of the basic conditions in Overton's model. The examples are numerous.

Amazing as it may sound, there are quite a few seemingly "academic" papers, which claim that pedophilia is not a perversion, but in fact, a "sexual tendency", that people who consume child pornography do not necessarily attack children or desire to have sex with them, and that child pornography can actually provide a "solution " and a kind of sublimation for those who are "attracted to children" and to prevent crimes on this background. For example, a paper published in 2022 in the Archives of Sex Behavior under the title "Pedophile, Child Lover, or Minor-Attracted Person? Attitudes Toward Labels Among People Who are Sexually Attracted to Children", discusses the question of whether the labeling of "people sexually attracted to children" as "pedophiles" is not offensive and stigmatizing.

And it's not just theoretical studies. One of the shocking and unimaginable examples is what was called the "Kantler Experiment" - the pedophile experiment conducted by the professor of education Helmut Kantler, that began in the 1970s in Berlin and lasted for 30 years, in which homeless children were transferred to the custody of pedophiles, some of them senior academics, and all this with full knowledge of the authorities, with their support (including financial support when the pedophiles received an allowance from the state), and while defending the experiment.

Furthermore, in recent decades, legal and political debates on pedophilia and child pornography have taken place in many countries, and in some of them, legal rulings and mitigating legislation have been adopted. For example, in the Netherlands, judges from the Court of Appeals in the city of Leeuwarden ruled in 2013 that an organization seeking to promote the legalization of "consensual sex" between adults and children can continue to operate. In doing so, the court overturned a previous judicial decision, arguing that although the organization's work is against public order, there is no evidence leading to a "threat of disrupting society". In several countries, including Switzerland, Finland, Denmark and Japan, "virtual" child pornography, such as in comics, is legal, and in some countries, including Russia and Belarus, Haiti, Cuba, and Guatemala, even possession of pornographic materials involving children is not considered a violation of the law.

It should be noted that in Israel these days a proposal was made to amend Section 348(d)(1) of the Penal Code - an amendment that, if accepted, would raise the age of consent for 14-year-olds from three to five years. "When the age difference between the minors and the accused does not exceed five years, the minor consented to the act, and the act was committed during normal friendly relations and without taking advantage of the status of the accused," the proposed amendment to the law states. The proposal to amend the law is open for public comments until 10/5/2023 at 11:59 p.m.

And not just countries. A 2020 UNICEF report argued that pornography is not always harmful to children, and that efforts to block children's access to pornography online could "violate their human rights".

"And this brings us back to the new UN report. The call for the decriminalization of sexual relations in a way that also implies the decriminalization of sexual activity between adults and children, and for the abolition of the age of consent, is a disturbing and dangerous intersection that must be warned about and opposed - and the fact that all of this is done under the guise of "human rights" and even "children's rights" is especially disturbing. As mentioned, the authors do not relate to all the conditions designed to prevent exploitation. It is clear to anyone with an understanding that the younger the child, and the greater the age gap between him/her and the older partner, the greater the risk of exploitation. And precisely in this situation, where the child may be exploited and the right of choice and free will is denied, the UN report uses the argument of protecting "human rights". In this way, the children's rights are being usurped in favor of the rights of their exploiters.

This step is particularly worrisome in light of the fact that it is only one part of the huge puzzle of policy and regulatory measures that indicate an emerging situation, under the radar of all of us, in which it is not clear who really those promoting it and what their interests are – Are those promoters indeed the organizations that are supposed to guard society and human rights, or giant corporations, entities with economic and/or personal interests, or countries with global ambitions such as China?

According to the principles of the Overton window model, the very discussion of an issue that is outside the window of discourse turns it from illegitimate and unthinkable, to legitimate and thinkable - because after all, we did think about it, and even discussed it. That is, already in the actual discussion of the issue, we moved it into the window of discourse. This is certainly true of supposedly "academic" and "scientific" discussions.

Unfortunately, as noted, the issue of pedophilia has long been deep within the discourse window, and in fact, it is already at the other end of the window, in advanced stages of attempts at legislation and regulation promoting and encouraging it. The time to act is yesterday.