Interpretation

In this Act“child” means a person below the age of eighteen years; “child pornography” includes any photographic, film, video or other visual representation, whether or not it was made by electronic or mechanical means, that shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity, or the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or genital area or other area of the body of a child, or any written material or visual representation that advocates or counsels sexual activity with a “coercion” includes– (a) violent as well as non-violent forms of, or psychological coercion; Children (Prohibition) 7 (b) threats of serious harm to, or physical restraints against, any person; (c) any scheme, plan or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in harm to, or physical restraints against, any person; (d) the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process; “commercial sexual exploitation” means the employment, hiring, use, persuasion, inducement, coercion or enticement of a child to engage in, or aid another person to engage in, sexual intercourse, fondling, oral sex, sodomy or any other sexual activity, or to engage in prostitution, indecent behaviour or incest with other children or with adults, or to perform in obscene or indecent exhibitions or shows, whether live or via audio-visual aids or on film, or by electronic media or to pose or act as a model in obscene publications or other pornographic materials, or to sell, or participate in the selling of, or to distribute or participate in the distribution of, such publications or materials in exchange for money, gifts, goods or other item for the benefit of that child or of an intermediary third party involved in the sexual exploitation and includes the illicit transfer or sale of the organs of a child; “court” means the Supreme Court; “Minister” means the Minister responsible for children; “person having authority or control over a child” includes a parent, guardian, foster parent, operator or supervisor of an institution having care of children, a teacher, a social services practitioner, or any person who has the day to day care and control of, or influence over a child; “relationship of trust” includes a relationship of parent or guardian and child, operator or supervisor of an institution having care of children and the children in that institution, teacher and student, any familial relationship, social services practitioner and client, or any relationship where a person acts as the care giver to a child or has care of and control over a child; “social services practitioner” has the same meaning as an “authorized person” as defined in section 2 of the Families and Children Act; and “sexual activity” includes fondling, oral sex, sodomy or any other activity intended to provide sexual gratification.