A total of 791 people took part in the poll on Thursday, May 21.
The survey offered three response options to the question: “What do you think about the decriminalization of pornography?”
The responses were divided as follows:
“It is time to decriminalize it” — 46%
“No, because of public morality concerns” — 34%
“No, because it would deprive the Interior Ministry of income” — 20%
The poll results are not representative of the population of Ukraine as a whole.
On May 20, the Security Service of Ukraine, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the National Police exposed alleged criminal activity involving senior regional police officials.
Authorities said the suspects had protected the activities of models working on online platforms featuring explicit content. In exchange for various amounts of illicit payments, the officials allegedly guaranteed that the “clients” would not face prosecution over illegal content.
Those detained included:
the head of the National Police department in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast;
the deputy head of the National Police department in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast;
the first deputy head of the National Police department in Ternopil Oblast;
the deputy head of the National Police department in Zhytomyr Oblast;
a driver employed by the Interior Ministry’s service center who allegedly acted as an intermediary and courier.
The Prosecutor General’s Office said the intermediary in the scheme was a driver for one of Ukraine’s deputy interior ministers. Using connections within the National Police leadership, he allegedly arranged for officials not to interfere with the operations of such “porn offices.”