MOSCOW, April 21 (RAPSI) - Yelena Mizulina, Head of the State Duma Committee for Family, Women and Children’s Issues, is advocating a law that would criminalize the posession of child pornography.

“It’s important to pass the law as soon as possible, one that will not only define child pornography and provide for building a directory of such images, but to promptly reveal violators and bring charges against those storing child pornography with no intent to sell it,” Mizulina said at the Safe Internet Forum.

She added that there was a similar directory in the US as a result of the Innocent Images initiative. “The program provided for developing an extensive database of child pornographic images that helps identify any found images as pornographic. The program allows for discovering such images across the internet. Therefore, no additional expertise is necessary,” Mizulina said.

The head of the committee said that a bill was drafted and discussed within the general anti-pedophile law. However, it has not passed into law yet.

Mizulina also spoke for tough penalties for storing and distributing child pornography online. In the US, she said, a person posting or sending a pornographic image online for the first time is fined as much as $200,000 and $300,000 for every incident thereafter.