Germany: Federal government launches emergency programme to protect children from violence in the media

by Katharina Kunze
Published on: 28.03.07
Source: Press Release from the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs

13.02.2007
Federal Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen and Armin Laschet, Family Minister of North-Rhine Westphalia, introduced a new programme against extremely violent content in computer games, in Videos and on DVDs.

In the future, extremely violent content in computer games, videos and on DVDs shall be automatically strictly forbidden to children and young persons. Age-labels on games, videos and DVDs shall be accentuated more clearly and additional sale prohibitions shall be possible without the prior testing procedure.The emergency programme is aimed at the following priorities:

Tighten up Youth Protection with strict adherence to the rules

Enforce a more effective Youth Protection with visible age labels and acustic signals for sales personnel

Quality assurance with more staff at the organisations of voluntary self-regulation

Communication to increase awareness of parents or legal guardians

On authority of the Federal Family Ministry and the federal states, the regulations of youth protection in Germany are going to be evaluated by the Hans-Bredow-Institut, Hamburg. First results in the area of computer games are expected in June 2007.

Further information in German language can be found under http://www.bmfsfj.de/Kategorien/Presse/pressemitteilungen,did=94780.html

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