E-commerce Minister Renee Webb is hopeful new child porn laws will offer ?more robust protection? for children.

The Throne Speech stated: ?The Government will also consider Child Protection Measures to provide greater protection against online child pornography and the targeting of minors on websites.?

And Minister Webb admitted that current legislation is ?weak?, something that has been highlighted in the recent case of a Police officer being accused of downloading images of children from the Internet which it was discovered was not actually breaking any law.

?It is something that we view as very important,? Ms Webb told

?The current legislation in the Obscene Publications Act doesn?t go far enough to outlaw and criminalise child pornography.

?The law is very weak with respect to protecting children. We are looking to make it more robust so that just being in possession of these depraved images is an offence, even if the images are not trafficked, which is already against the law.

?This seems to be a popular pastime for some people and it is something we want to stamp out.?

She added that the laws would not make it an offence to view ?normal? pornography. ?We are not going to stop people viewing pornography in the privacy of their own homes if that is what they want to do,? she added.

Detective Sergeant Mark Clarke, of the Police?s Juvenile and Domestic Crime Unit, is also supportive of this new proposed legislation.

?Anything that protects children I?m fully supportive of,? said Det. Sgt. Clarke.

?We need to take the lead of other jurisdictions on this subject and really tighten our legislation.

?It is internationally accepted that viewing these images is a continued abuse of the child victim.

?Creating these images is exploitative and viewing these pictures is giving impetus to those that produce them.?

He added that, up until now, the Police were not aware of any child pornography actually being produced in Bermuda for the Internet.

The Government?s E-commerce Advisor Nigel Hickson said: ?The child pornography laws ban the downloading of child pornography.

?It also looks at websites that target children. It is difficult to monitor, but if it comes out that a site is going out to attract children, we can alert the authorities.?

He said for instance websites targeting minors ?to do certain things? and entice them say, into a chat room, could be shut down following the introduction of the legislation.

A change in the law over the legality of possessing child pornography has been planned for some time but became more of an issue in recent weeks

In relation to the Child Labour laws, which Government proposed to review in the Throne Speech, Coalition for the Protection of Children president Sheelagh Cooper believes the problem of children working long hours as packers in supermarkets is a big one in Bermuda.

?There are not a lot of laws about this at the moment,? she added.

?Many children work long hours in grocery stores. The kids don?t have a life. It is unfortunate but many of the children have to work to help their households pay rent.

?But looking at these laws won?t make a difference, we need to look at the system that puts so many people in poverty in the first place.?