Dutch pedophiles set to go political

May 30, 2006

A group of pedophiles in the Netherlands will make a political party tomorrow, May 31. The party titled Naastenliefde, Vrijheid en Diversiteit (NVD) - Neighbourly Love, Freedom and Diversity - is set to enter the 2007 Tweede Kamer (Lower House) elections, though they are not expected to gain any seats.

Controversially, the party - or NVD - wants to abolish the legal minimum age for youth sexual contact with other youth, lower the legal minimum age for sexual contact with adults to 12, then eventually abolish age restrictions altogether. The members think, contrary to established law protecting minors from sexual abuse, legalising voluntary sex at a young age will diminish the risk of excesses.

Ad van den Berg, one of the pedophile party's founders, says: "Forbidding it will only feed the curiosity of children. (...) Raising children also means letting them get acquainted with sex." The minimum ages for youth-youth sex and youth-adult sex in the Netherlands currently stands at 16 and 18 respectively.

The NVD also wants to decriminalise much of the porn industry with plans to legalize the possession of child pornography. They want to lower the minimum age for participation in a pornography production; this currently stands at 18, but the group wants the age to be lowered to 12. The child sex advocates from the NVP say any child who is sexually active at age 12 could voluntarily act in a porn movie.

The party also wants to establish a child pornography "hallmark", which would somehow ensure involvement of minors in a specific production was voluntary.

Ireen van Engelen exposes the underlying motives of the small but radical group of pedophile campaigners: "They make it appear as if they wish for more rights for children, but their stance that children from age 12 up should be allowed to enter into sexual contacts of course only serves their own interest."

Political scientist Joop van Holsteyn thinks the establishment of the NVD to decriminalise acts most people find abhorrent is a Trojan horse to insert the subject into an otherwise unwilling political debate. "What is ethically sound is not laid down in the law: it is an element of the political struggle. If it gains publicity, they already have attained their goal, but they will find more opponents than proponents."