Teenage Sexting Laws

In the past, child pornography laws in Canada were strictly there to save children from abuse, however, more recently these laws have been applied to teenagers to discipline them for sexting. Misusing these laws can have dramatic long term effects on a teenager, and label them a predator or a pervert. Although sexting is an inappropriate behaviour which can cause irreparable damage on victims, we need to discover new ways to discipline teenagers in sexting cases, instead of applying an incorrect law which comes with an unreasonable sentence and label.
In most legal cases regarding sexting, the victim has been severely bullied and harassed by the perpetrator and their peers. Bullying, although not equivalent to child sexual abuse, is a serious
A law that directly confronts teenage sexting and the redistribution of private sexually explicit materials, would help teenagers understand the legal consequences of harassing and bullying their peers and punish them for their misconduct without classifying them as paedophiles. Fortunately, most Canadian Courts have used their judgement when assessing teenage sexting cases and have generally avoided child pornography charges for these cases. As Slane (2013)
(p. 119)
As Slane (2013) implies, even in the case of extortion or harassment, child pornography charges are unsuitable and do not accurately depict the offense. Instead, Canadian Courts should deal with the harassment and exploitation of individuals through sexually explicit material which has been taken consensually or without consent, similarly. These cases should not be ignored and perpetrators should not be charged under child pornography. Instead, these cases should be treated with different legislation which protects all victims, minors and adults from being extorted. As Slane (2013) explains:
The phenomenon of ‘‘revenge porn’’ has recently been subject to litigation in the United States (Citron, 2013), though there too it is not clear that the subjects of consensually taken sexual photographs have any real hope of legal recourse. Like the circumstances in which Jessica Logan found herself – she was legally an adult – revenge porn is most often circulated by former lovers who were the original recipient of a sext, and the fact of the image being initially consensual seems to rob the victim of her innocence – in other words, she brought this on herself by participating in sexual expression at all.