The Public Defender of Georgia is responding to the TV story about child pornography aired by the Mtavari Arkhi (Main Channel) in its Post Factum programme, which showed alleged pornography of minors.

It was partially possible to identify children in the TV story, which is completely inadmissible and can have extremely severe impact on the condition of the child and adolescent victims; in addition, interest may be increased in this illegal footage.

We are also responding to the trailer for the Skhva Nanuka Show of the same TV channel, according to which, they plan to interview one of the juvenile victims.

The Public Defender of Georgia calls on the Mtavari TV channel to discuss the expediency of interviewing a minor in the Skhva Nanuka Show. Talking to a child victim, especially publicly, about a serious crime such as child pornography, requires special knowledge, experience and skills so that to ensure that the victim's current and future psycho-emotional state is not affected. It is necessary to properly assess the above issue. In addition, the possibility of identification of the child should be completely excluded.

We would like to remind the TV media companies that TV stories about children should be based on the principle of protection of the best interests of the child, journalists should give priority to the interests of the child while performing their professional duties, they should not to prepare TV stories or articles that may be harmful to children.