BANGALORE: About 200 protesters gathered at Cubbon Park on Sunday demanding that the government ban websites displaying pornographic material.
“We conducted a survey among 3,700 students across various districts in Karnataka and asked boys in Pre-University and Degree Colleges questions about how much porn they watch, the kind of porn and how frequently. The results we found were shocking,” Abhishek Clifford, CEO of Rescue, an NGO that works towards creating awareness programs against human trafficking, AIDS and rape, said.
“We found that 33 per cent of college students watch violent porn, rape and gang-rape videos,” Clifford added.
He said that the government needs to become more serious about the impact porn is having on children. “If this park had 700 naked men and women then everybody would start screaming and be scandalised that such a thing is happening in a public space. The web world is a public space too and there this instance is happening everyday. Why isn’t anybody stopping it?” he asked.
The rally which began from Cubbon Park culminated at Freedom Park. The protesters held posters with slogans warning the effect porn has on mind. “Watching porn is an illness. It is due to things like this that more and more men are raping women and women are not being respected,” a college student, who was part of the rally, said.
The two NGOs — Rhoumaia and Rescue — which organised the rally sought that preventive measures also be introduced. “Many parents do not know how to make the computers more safe. There are many parental software available which let them monitor the content being seen by their children. They should install this. Also cyber ethics should be introduced as part of the syllabus in school to educate children better,” Clifford said.