Nepal government has recently decided to ban the porn sites as the rape rate of the country is increasing day by day. Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MOCIT) has ordered the Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA) to ban porn sites. NTA has instructed ISP (like Wordlink, Vianet, etc) to stop the distribution of such obscene content.
As per the new Muluki Ain (Aparad Samhita) 2074, it is strictly prohibited to broadcast and distribute offensive sexual content. However, there are mixed feedbacks, especially from the youngsters about government decision.
According to Alexa ranking (website ranking company by Amazon), there are four pornographic sites in the top 50 most visited sites.
Is it possible to block such sites?
On Ashoj 5 after the order from MOCIT, NTA banned few porn sites. However, due to lack of proper system and technology, NTA is not being able to block all the existing porn sites. NTA has blocked a total of 45 porn sites among millions of porn sites.
Meanwhile, ISP already claims that it is impossible to ban porn sites as there are lots of sites contains sexual contents. On top of that people use proxies and Virtual Private Network (VPN) to bypass such blocking. The proxy will act as the middleman between the user and the browsed server. The proxy server will fetch the website and send to the user, bypassing any filter and browse without restriction.
Even Government of China is failing to ban social media like Facebook, Viber sites, then how can Nepal become successful in banning the sites.
What could be the solution?
There is no viable study in respect of Nepal that relates pornography has direct contact with sexual violence against women. Sexologist claims that the government has failed in proper consultation with experts regarding the decision of blocking sexual contents. There are some pornographic contents which are essential for people, such kind of material makes people aware of sexual life. Some study shows that Porn can benefit our relationship and sex life.
According to study 30% of women around the globe watch porn as well. So, instead of blocking sexual contents, the government should make strong law and punishment so that people be aware of it. Banning porn sites is not a solid and constructive solution. The government should focus on sex education and awareness rather than blocking sites. Every man must understand that women are not sexual objects.
Note: In 2015, the Indian government has banned 857 porn sites, but after massive criticism by the public, the government withdrew the decision.