Amsterdam - Dutch paedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalisation of child pornography and sex with animals.
The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party said on its Website it would be officially registered on Wednesday, proclaiming: "We are going to shake The Hague awake!"
The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether.
"A ban just makes children curious," Ad van den Berg, one of the party's founders, told the Algemeen Dagblad (AD) newspaper.
"We want to make paedophilia the subject of discussion," he said, adding that the subject had been a taboo since the 1996 Marc Dutroux child abuse scandal in neighbouring Belgium. "We have been hushed up. The only way is through parliament."
The Netherlands already has liberal policies on soft drugs, prostitution, and gay marriage, but the NVD is unlikely to win much support, the AD quoted experts as saying.
"They make out as if they want more rights for children. But their position that children should be allowed sexual contact from age 12 is of course just in their own interest," anti-paedophile campaigner Ireen van Engelen told the daily.
The party said private possession of child pornography should be allowed although it favours banning the trade of such materials. The broadcast of pornography should be allowed on daytime television, with only violent pornography limited to the late evening, according to the party.
Toddlers should be given sex education and youths aged 16 and up should be allowed to appear in pornographic films and prostitute themselves. Sex with animals should be allowed although abuse of animals should remain illegal, the NVD said.
The party also said everybody should be allowed to go naked in public.
The party's programme also includes ideas for other areas of public policy including legalising all soft and hard drugs and free train travel for all.