Iceland

The Icelandic government has not made any effort or promises to try to limit children’s access to pornography on the internet. Making, distributing and showing pornography in public is illegal in Iceland.

In early 2013 there was a draft proposal by Ögmundur Jónasson, the Minister of the Interior, to extend the ban to online pornography to protect children from violent sexual imagery. The plan has been stalled since the change in government in 2013.

On the positive side, there is a programme of quantitative research completed every two years in Iceland. Teenagers from the age of 14 are asked about their porn consumption. The results show that the number of children watching internet porn has decreased a little in the last four years. However, still almost 50% of all 15-year-old boys in Iceland watch porn at frequencies ranging from every week to several times a day.

The ministry of Education, Science and Culture put a group of professionals together in the beginning of 2021. They were give the job of making a new policy on Sexual education and violence prevention. The group has now published their report. It has a very clear message that teaching about the difference between porn and sex should be mandatory. This applies to both primary and upper secondary schools in Iceland. There has also been a parliamentary resolution. It says that the Ministry of Health should do research to measure the effect that porn consumption has on children and teenagers. That work is supposed to be done by the end of 2021.