The Link Between Sex Crimes and Pornography 

Everyone in Australia today is significantly affected by pornography. We have allowed virtually all of our corner shops, newsagents, petrol stations and milkbars to become smut peddlers and openly degrade the image of God. Our 16 year-olds (year 10 schoolgirls) are legally used as porno centrefolds, thereby sending the dangerously harmful message that this age group is sexually accessible and available.

The Home Office in London, the Dutch Ministry of Justice in the Hague, the European Community, our own Institute of Criminology and the Japanese Foreign Ministry join other international agencies who rank Australia as the highest country in the world for rape.

Prominent Victorian Crown Prosecutor Richard Read says there is a "very clear link" between pornography and sexual violence. Dr Don Thompson, Director of Forensic Psychology at Monash Uni, distinguished Victorian Barrister and consultant to the Australian Law Reform Commission says that "pornography is causally related to sexually violent behaviour". Inspector Sprague of the Spectrum Task Force in Melbourne, investigating the "Mr Cruel" schoolgirl abductions and murder, is "convinced there is a strong link between pornography and the amount of sex crimes we get."

The link between pornography and rape is no longer arguable!

These professionals are joined by many other experts who are sounding a loud, clear - yet media censored - warning about pornography's threat to society.

The pornography capital of Australia, Canberra, is also the rape capital of Australia. From 1992 to 1994 the Australian Capital Territory experienced an astonishing rape increase of almost 350%. The Australian Bureau of Statistics confirms that women are raped more in the ACT than anywhere else in Australia. Research proves that wherever pornography is openly and freely available more women will be raped. Conversely, when restrictions are placed on the smut merchants, rapes decrease.

The Australian Federation for the Family is committed to helping our society become a better place for the next generation. Our newsletter, the AFF Journal, is read by thousands who have joined us in this 'winnable war'. AFF has prepared parliamentary submissions full of Australian and international data on pornography, homosexuality, paedophilia, prostitution and media sex & violence. We have addressed State and Federal Parliamentary forums and have lobbied for and initiated legislation, now passed in Victoria, to prohibit objectionable material from being openly displayed or sold to children.

AFF members have closed sex shops, removed offensive public displays of pornography, cancelled major advertising contracts from porn magazines and offensive television, we convinced major retailers to withdraw Playboy and Penthouse magazines and were even able to ban X-Rated and R-Rated material from Pay TV in Australia. Praise God!

AFF Dir, Jack Sonnemann, is familiar to many in the Christian Church in Australia and reminds us that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (I Jn 3:8). He extends a passionate plea for others to join the battle in order to help our children have clean hands and pure hearts, without which no one will see God! (Ps 24: 3,4) Bless you for helping us.