Jan. 16 (UPI) — More than 1,000 Danish children were charged for child pornography after they allegedly shared a “revenge porn” video of two 15-year-olds having sex, according to reports Monday.
The sex in the video was initially consensual. But a girl in the video was penetrated with foreign objects, which she said she did not consent to. She also said she did not consent to being recorded, The New York Times reported.
After the video was taken, it was spread via the Facebook messenger app, where some of the children shared it hundreds of times. The video was eventually flagged by Facebook and then sent to Danish authorities.
The decision to charge more than 1,000 youths comes at a time when Denmark has been cracking down on kids engaging in “revenge porn” — the act of sharing intimate sexual material without the other person’s consent for vengeful purposes.
“It is our opinion that young people understand the major consequences for the victims when they share this kind of material,” Flemming Kjaerside, a police superintendent for Denmark’s National Crime Center, told Deutsche Welle. “But they may not also understand that it is punishable and that they may be sentenced for distributing child pornography.”
Although prison time is unlikely for the youths involved in this case, convictions could stay on their record for 10 years, and perpetrators will be prohibited from working in a job involving children.
“This will ruin my life,” 19-year-old Mira Bech told Danish television station, TV2. “It’s the world’s most ridiculous case. I couldn’t tell that the people in the video were under 18.”
But Emma Holten, who has campaigned against cyber-bullying, told The New York Times the youths should have been aware of the consequences, both for themselves and the people in the video.
“Four years ago, I would have felt sorry for them,” she said. “Back then you could have argued that they were not aware of that it was illegal, but today they know.”
