Media Release
12 June 2009

Hotels Should Protect Children From Porn Channels

Family First NZ is calling on the Hotel and Motel industry to do more to protect children from accessing explicit pornography on their hotel movie channels.

The call comes after a distraught family contacted Family First after their eight year old was able to view explicit sexual acts being shown on the movie channels available in their hotel room.

“When the parents complained to the hotel manager, they learnt that the onus was on parents or guests to have the adult movies disabled when they checked in. We believe the default setting should be that the channels are blocked unless specifically requested to be accessed,”says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

“Blocking these channels and requiring a specific request to access them will not only protect unsuspecting children from being exposed to them, but will also require adults to have to actively purchase them rather than having easy access as they do now by default. We should be making it more difficult to access pornography rather than easier.”

“It’s time that we acknowledged the harm that pornography does to families, men and marriages. It is unacceptable that children are also being put at risk,” says Mr McCoskrie

Family First is asking the Industry to set the standard that adult movies must be specifically requested rather than the current situation where families must remember each time they visit a hotel to request a disabling of the offending channels.

ENDS

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