A Protection Of Children From Harmful Content Bill has been drafted in Uzbekistan. The Bill has been published on the legal acts discussion portal.
The Bill says that content that is harmful to children's health is the content that is prohibited for distribution among children, and it institutes a mandatory content rating system.
Content prohibited for distribution among children is the content that:
- encourages children to commit acts that pose a threat to their lives and (or) health, including self-harm, suicide; may incite in children the desire to use alcohol and tobacco products, substance abuse, encourage gambling, engage in prostitution, vagrancy or begging;
- justifies the admissibility of violence and cruelty or encourages violent actions towards people or animals;
- denies family values, promotes sexual abuse and builds disrespect to parents and other family members;
- justifies unlawful activities and contributes to commission of such;
- contains coarse language;
- contains pornography;
- depicts children affected by unlawful activities (omissions), including the names, photo and videos of such, his parents and other legal representatives, date of birth of such, audio record of his voice, his place of residence or place of temporary residence, place of his studies or work, other information allowing directly or indirectly to establish the identity of such a child.
Mandatory age restriction is required for content that:
- depicts cruelty, physical and (or) mental violence, crime or other antisocial action;
- elicits fear, horror or panic among children, including images of a non-violent death, disease, suicide, accident, or catastrophe and (or) their consequences;
- depicts sexual intercourse between people;
- contains abusive words and expressions, not related to coarse language.
A mandatory age rating may be required in relation to material in the territory of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Age rating for material is referred as follows:
- material for children under the age of seven;
- material for children between the ages of seven and fourteen;
- material for children between the ages of fourteen and eighteen;
- material prohibited to children.
Content age rating is set by inter-agency commissions on affairs of minors on the basis of applications of producers and (or) distributors of material.
