Ahead of elections, Knesset pushes porn, sex workers laws

Knesset approved Porn bill in first reading, after approving third reading of Sex workers law.

By HAGAY HACOHEN
Updated: JANUARY 1, 2019 18:21
Sex [Illustrative] (photo credit: INGIMAGE)
Sex [Illustrative]
(photo credit: INGIMAGE)
The Knesset approved the first reading of a bill limiting the Israeli access to porn-sites and sites presenting adult-related materials on Tuesday.
Designed to protect minors from exposure and consumption of pornographic content, the bill demands web-service providers to send a message to house-holds with internet access asking if they wish to have such sites blocked or not.
Should they decline the offer they will be asked to provide personal information proving that they are adults and are the ones paying for the service.
Israelis who do not respond to these messages will still be able to access the internet, but will be sent this message every three months.
For each Israeli who wishes the web provider to block adult content on his or her service, the web provider will get NIS 2 from the State of Israel, which allocated NIS 5 million annually for a decade.
The Knesset also approved adopting the Nordic Model in relation to sex workers this week.
The new law, which will go into effect in 18 months, will criminalize the hiring of sex workers and is a part of a fuller effort to establish social and mental support to help people in the sex work industry to exit the field before the law comes into effect.
The Nordic Model, which criminalizes people who hire sex workers, is the toughest legal framework designed to end sex work in the West. Seen by some as a needed legal step to prevent the abuse of women, men, and minors who are doing sex work - the law is seen by others as a state intervention on people's right's and bodies as well as a criminalizing human activity that will be very hard to prevent.


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