One man convicted of paedophilia has been elected mayor while another, the former assistant of a child molester, will serve as the capital s deputy mayor. Nowadays a growing number of paedophilia cases are simply overlooked, provided it is in someone s interest. A recently launched movement is fighting for social acceptance of paedophilia as activists argue that it is just another sexual orientation.

Cases of paedophilia have triggered public outrage in several countries. In Guadalupe, an overseas departement of France, 36-year-old Cedric Cornet, a convicted paedphile, has been elected mayor of Le Gosier with over 50 per cent of the votes.

The newly elected mayor has already had some brushes with the law. In 2019 he was convicted of sexually harrassing a minor under the age of 15 and received a suspended 2-year prison sentence and a fine of 16 thosand euros. His name was also entered in a database of perpetrators of sexual offences or aggressive crimes.

The case of former Hungarian diplomat Gabor Kaleta has also been recently closed. Althouh authorities found tens of thousands of child pornography images on his computer,  a Hungarian court handed out a suspended one-year prison sentence and a fine of 540,000 Hungarian forints (approximately 1,500 euros).

MEP Tamas Deutsch, delegated to the European Parliament by Hungary s ruling Fidesz party, was furious about the verdict, as evidenced by his recent Facebook post.

He wrote: „There is this crooked man who s hoarded together tonnes of paedophile images … more than 19 thousand! And for all of this, he gets sentenced by Hungary s immeasurably independent courts to only one year and receives a fine of HUF 540 thousand. To one year, suspended! A crying shame!”

It appears though that it is not just the court rulings that tend to provoke heated discussions and debates. Paedophiles are increasingly being excused by people who claim that paedophilia is not a crime, but simply a sexual orientation.

Within the confines of the recently launched MAP movement, where the acronym stands for minor attracted people, paedophiles argue that they are innately attracted to children and simply try to hide behind the LGBT community to be protected from attacks.

New York Times has also joined those who appear to protect paedophilia. In 2014, the newspaper went as far as to publish an op-ed titled: „Pedophilia: A Disorder, Not a Crime.” The author writes that there are misconceptions regarding paedophiles, and they should be differentiated, because there are people who „live with pedophilia and not act on it.”

In its recent review referencing the aforementioned New York Times op-ed, Caldronpool claims that paeophiles should enjoy legal protection so they could seek treatment more easily and fit back in society. The news site mentions a number of arguments, saying paedophilia should be classified as just a sexual orinetation, to provide paedophiles with some legal protection. Should this happen, paedophiles could even accept school jobs and work beside children.

The case of French author Gabriel Matzneff is also linked to France. In several of his works, the renowned author wrote openly about his relationship with minors, both boys and girls. Matzneff s books were widely known, yet people turned a blind eye to the issue and he enjoyed the company of important people such as former French President Francois Mitterrand, or famous fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent.

However, the public sentiment has changed after one of the abused girls published a book earlier this year. Vanessa Springora, who was a minor when she got involved with Matzneff, recounts her experiences in the book. She launched a belated MeToo movement in the French literary world that caused people to turn away from the writer, who now lives a secluded life away from prying eyes.

People in his immediate surroundings, however, have survived the writer s downfall. Christophe Girard, a former assistant to Gabriel Matzneff, was on the team of Anne Hidalgo, re-elected as mayor of Paris in the French municipal elections at the end of June. Girard will work alongside Hidalgo as deputy mayor for culture.

Germany witnessed as many as two paedophilia scandals in June. News reports surfacing at the beginning of the month focused on the so-called Kentler experiment carried out in West Berlin during the 1960s and 1970s. In this social experiment, homeless or orphaned children were intentionally placed with paedophile men as Kentler argued that they would be more loving foster parents than ordinary people.

One participant, a man named Fritz, had an established criminal record for child abuse and was able to rape and sexually exploit at least nine foster children trusted to his care. There were ominous warning signs, yet Berlin s child welfare offices have turned a blind eye and repeatedly selected Fritz to be a foster father to these children.

During the second incident, German police took action against a huge paedophile network in an operation that has produced an unexpectedly large number of suspects. 21 of them already face various charges and police have identified over 30 thousand digital leads as part of the online network run on the dark web.

The extensive paedophile ring had several victims, young boys and girls alike, and officers involved in the investigation have encountered so much horror that many of they needed counselling. Authorities have set up a special unit to wind up the case and identify the members of the paedophile network.

In 2018, authorities in the Netherlands discovered a several-hundred-page manual on how paedophiles can seduce unsuspecting young children. They say the document has been circulating on the dark web for nearly ten years.

Although the booklet has been shared on several online platforms, authorities were helpless. They knew that the manual was extremely dangerous, but the distribution and possession of such booklets does not constitute a crime in the Netherlands. The atrocious manual warns, for instance, that only small babies can be considered „safe prey” because they cannot talk, adding that children aged between 2 and 4 are becoming more „dangerous” as they can no longer keep secrets.

A recent interview on NTR s popular Danny op Straat programme has sparked massive controversy in the Netherlands. Host Danny Ghosen spoke to a pro-paedophilia activist, who asked to remain anonymous and only to be identified as Nelson.

Nelson, a self-professed paedophile, admitted in the interview that he is attracted to boys aged between 4 and 14. He argued that if toddlers are developed enough to decide that they want an ice cream, then they are also able to decide whether they want sex or not. Nelson revealed that he wants to set up a political party with the aim of making sex with children legal.