Porn addicts on the rise by Suraj A. Bandara

There has been a dramatic increase in the viewing of pornography in recent years in Sri Lanka, Ranil Weththasinghe, a Family Planning Association Psychologist and a Counsellor said. School-going children are more vulnerable for addiction to pornography as there are many avenues to access it.

They visit porn sites on the promise that "It is common and hurts no one, and is socially acceptable. There is a widely held view by males that the female body is for male entertainment and sex is not about intimacy but self-esteem.

And as with any addiction, the more pornography, the more the appetite grows," he said.

Sri Lankan children know how to download porn material than adults. Adults are not educated on the technological side and they have very limited knowledge on how to access porn. It has given the opportunity to children to visit porn sites freely even in their homes, he said.

The mobile phones and portable video devices, particularly laptops, help the young to visit these porn sites which have been designed to attract more people particularly the youth, he said.

Explaining possible preventive methods, a spokesman for the Children and Women's Bureau of the Police Department said that the police make sudden checks on mobile phones to see whether any pornography are contained in them.

In such cases the culprits are produced before the court and fined, he said. The police arrested many individuals who were carrying porn materials in their mobile phones during the last two months.

Alarmingly even little children are addicted to pornography and the parents allow them to use sophisticated mobile phones irrespective of the risk of corrupting their minds, he said.

A spokesman for a key mobile network provider said it is difficult to block porn sites since there are innumerable and unaccounted porn sites.

But we have taken action to prevent accessing certain identified sites and also discussions are under way to take action to prevent all possible ways in accessing porn sites.

He was optimistic that after a common agreement of all network providers action could be taken at least to minimize visits to porn sites, he said.

HT - Daily News from Sri Lanka