PNVD
Partij voor Naastenliefde, Vrijheid & Diversiteit (PNVD, founded 18 May 2006) is a small, Leiden-based Dutch political party that supports some of the objectives associated with Childlove and liberalisation of Age of Consent laws. Its motto is "sapere aude ("Have courage to use your own reason"). Since its foundation, the PNVD has faced persecution from organisations such as SKS, members of the public and their own state.
Structure
The public membership of this party currently consists of the standard three posts required by Dutch politics.
Marthijn Uittenbogaard - President | Ad van den Berg - Treasurer | Norbert de Jonge - Chairman.
All three public members have at some point been active in Vereniging Martijn, an organisation that campaigns for liberalisation of laws against sex between adults and minors.
Applicable positions
The PNVD seeks to have the legal age-of-consent lowered to 12, and, in the long run, completely eliminated (except in dependent or intrafamilial relationships). They reason that only coerced or dangerous sexual activity should be punished. They also aim to equalize the legal age where one can perform in pornography with the legal age-of-consent. Prostitution would be legal at the age of 16. The PNVD also aims to legalise private use of child pornography.
Details of the PNVD's broader agenda can be found in the links below.
Early life and Election 2007
As can be seen from a basic search for the party's name, its launch in 2006 attracted large amounts of publicity and condemnation - acquiring the unwanted nickname "pedopartij" (the party's agenda is broader than just sexual politics). In a May 2006 opinion poll, 82% of respondents wanted the Dutch government to stop the party from competing in the 2007 elections. In June 2006, Norbert de Jonge was expelled from his pedagogy degree course at the Radboud University Nijmegen, owing to his involvement with the party and identification as a pedophile. Members claimed that it may have been possible to obtain public support and even participation from individuals who had no public connection with pedophilia, but these people pulled out at an early stage. It is probable that this lack of support contributed to the bile with which the group was attacked.
The anti-pedophile foundation "Soelaas" even petitioned the courts to ban the party, but the judges ruled in the PNVD's favour. "The freedom of expression, the freedom of assembly and the freedom of association ... should be seen as the foundations of the democratic rule of law and the PNVD is also entitled to these freedoms," the court said in a statement.
The party failed to stand in the 2007 Dutch parliamentary elections, as it did not obtain the 570 public declarations of support from Dutch citizens it would have required. It is probable that this figure would have been possible, had declaration been a private issue with no risk of violent comebacks from members of the public or far-right extremist groups that have targeted the PNVD's public members in the past.
External Links
- Home Page (Multilingual and Blind provisions)
- Programme of 2006 (2008 translation upcoming).