Tanzania's anti-porn drive

Tanzania's anti-porn drive

By Roger Dean in Dar-es-Salaam

President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania recently announced a crackdown on pornography, including on the internet.

But, as other countries have found, controlling what can be seen on a computer screen is much easier said than done.

Internet cafes are accused of turning a blind eye when their customers come to look at pornography, which is an illegal practice in Tanzania.

Indeed many cafes in Dar-es-Salaam have built booths around each computer for complete privacy.

Pressure from churches

President Mkapa's pledge to combat pornography went down well at the opening ceremony of the Christian Council of Tanzania's general meeting.

Tanzanian religious leaders, among others, are becoming increasingly concerned about the effects of internet porn on young people's morals.

"This is a serious problem," said Father Paul Prospanjoka, of St Joseph's Cathedral in Dar.

"Most of it is basically western, so it affects our culture, our way of living as Africans."

Father Prospanjoka believes the government can and should clamp down hard on pornography.

"They must take legal action against everyone involved with this," he says. "The government must see to it that the youth do not stray."

Policing the net

With action being demanded by the churches and promised by the president, it falls to the Tanzania Communications Commission (TCC) to work out how to police the internet.

Isaac Mruma is the public relations officer for the TCC. His view is that the legal responsibility falls to the internet service providers (ISPs).

"A condition of their licence is that they operate within the law. Here pornography is illegal," he said.

He accepts, though, that there are huge technical problems with blocking content.

"It's difficult for the ISPs to police the net cafes," he said. "Instead, we need to appeal to people's moral responsibilities."

But Mr Mruma stresses that misuse of the internet is much less common than proper use. "It has more positive aspects than negative. People use it for their education, and to get research data," he says.

"It is wrong to penalise everyone for the pornography viewing of a few."

But some Tanzanians make money, if only indirectly, from the porn industry.

Pritesh Gajjar, who runs an internet service provider, says that if Tanzanians were stopped from viewing pornography, he would lose out.

"We would lose money at first," he said, "but the internet is growing so fast that it would only be temporary."

"What we need is more quality Tanzanian content on the net, so that young people are not drawn into viewing these explicit pictures."

So the challenge is on to create engaging and beneficial internet content which will appeal to the youth of Tanzania.