THE draft Computer Crime and Cybercrime Bill being crafted by the Information Communication Technology ministry, if approved by Parliament, will impose 10-year jail sentences to people found in possession of pornography.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
Different stakeholders in Harare are currently scrutinising the draft Bill to improve it before it is presented for crafting by Parliament at a stakeholders’ meeting in the capital, which has been organised by the Centre for Applied Legal Research.
The draft Bill says people who make pornography available to children through a computer, will be slapped with a fine not exceeding level 12 or to imprisonment not exceeding 10 years, or both fine and imprisonment.
The child pornography crimes will include producing child pornography for the purpose of distribution through a computer system, offering or making available child pornography through a computer system, procuring and/or obtaining child pornography through a computer or information system for oneself or for another person. The Bill also seeks to criminalise unlawful and intentional dissemination of information through a computer system that produces racist and/or xenophobic material and insults.
Legal expert, Angeline Karonga said, while it will be easy and justified to criminalise child pornography, criminalising of adult pornography might be problematic.
“Pornography must be criminalised, but the challenge is that it is found in search engines that are hosted outside Zimbabwe. It will be difficult to control someone, who is offending people in Zimbabwe through pornography and they are doing it from a place where it is legal, for example, in South Africa and America, where it is not an offence,” she said.
“On children, I do not have a problem with criminalisation of pornography because we need to protect our vulnerable children.”
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Karonga said there was need to capacitate the police to deal with cybercrimes, as people are technophilic, while the police was using old methods of communication.
