The National Police Agency is considering making it harder for teenagers to buy magazines and videos deemed "harmful" due to their pornographic or violent contents from convenience stores, agency officials said August 22.
The agency will ask the convenience store industry in the near future to separate books and videos designated as harmful from other products and to refrain from selling them to minors, the officials said. The measure comes in the wake of the alleged murder of an 11-year-old in Kobe by a teenage suspect which has refueled debate over the need to limit children's access to harmful material, such as videos and books of an excessively pornographic or violent nature.
While all of Japan's 47 prefectures, except Nagano Prefecture, have ordinances banning the sale of material designated as harmful to those aged 18 or under, few precautions are taken and minors have easy access to a wide range of such products. To rectify this situation, the agency will ask convenience stores to check their products beforehand and to place the harmful magazines and videos in "adult sections," for example, or near the cash register, where the presence of clerks may discourage minors from buying them.