Porn Laws in Africa – Where Can I Watch Porn in Southern Africa?
There are large swathes of the world where pornography is completely legal, or with minimal limitations. However, porn in Southern Africa is a whole different ball game.
Finding out what the laws are all over Africa can be difficult, as we found in our look at the legality of porn in Northern Africa. There are, of course, different rules across the globe and we’ve got this handy map as a starting point. We’ve also covered areas like:
To guide you through your international porn watching experience.
All the information here doesn’t count as legal advice, and things can change without us know. We’ve got porn to be writing – we can’t monitor everything. Take this as a jumping off point and research in detail if you ever visit these countries.
A note about child pornography, too. There are some countries in Southern Africa that haven’t got child porn laws on the books. That doesn’t make it ok, ever. It’s wrong and illegal and disgusting, and if you’re looking for it you need to seek help. You’ll probably also get locked up in your own country no matter the local laws. Don’t search for or access child pornography, ever.
Moral and ethical duty done, let’s get into it.
Is porn legal in…
Democratic Republic of Congo
Starting as we mean to go on with our dive into laws in African nations – it’s not 100% clear if porn is actually banned in the DRC. There’s a law from 2002 that might mean that it’s banned, but we’re not too sure and sources are either. Be cautious if you ever want to access SinParty in DR Congo.
Tanzania
As a rather religious country – 96% of people are either Christian or Muslim – it’s understandable that the laws and lawmakers would be religiously moral. Porn in banned in Tanzania and in 2018 the Prime Minister went so far as to urge Tanzanians to delete all the porn off their phones and computers. Not sure he knew how porn on the internet works…
South Africa
In 1996, a law was introduced in South Africa that technically banned online porn. There was a glaring loophole in that live cam porn was left legal and content can still easily be bought from licensed places. In practice, accessing porn is pretty common in South Africa.
Kenya
As recently as 2020, there were calls to ban porn in Kenya from religious groups. It’s so far not worked and there are no specific laws about porn on the books. However, a loosely worded law on prostitution could cover porn, or at least making it, so check with locals if you’re concerned about enforcement of said law.
Angola
This is one of those countries that, for whatever reason, hasn’t yet gotten round to make laws about child pornography. Still not right. Still disgusting. Still need to seek help, not images.
As you might imagine, with not regulating even the abhorrent side of porn, the morally fine and acceptable porn has no legislation about it either.
Mozambique
Ambiguity is a running theme in African nations and their porn laws. There seems to be laws about indecency and publishing images, yet exactly what is banned and how strictly it’s enforced isn’t something we’ve been able to determine.
Madagascar
There are laws about pornography in general in Madagascar. As it stands, you can face between two to five years in prison and a US$3,100 fine. Reports on the ground suggest that the law isn’t strongly enforced. To be safe, you might want to understand how international travelers ensure regular access to porn sites.
Malawi
Back in 2016, the Malawian government passed the Electronic Transactions and Cyber Security Act. Inside this act were provisions that saw porn banned in the nation, unfortunately.
Zambia
Some of the content on SinParty might be well-priced, but would you ever pay US$3mil for watching porn? Nope, us neither. Don’t get caught doing anything to do with porn in Zambia if you’ve not got that type of spare cash, because it’s the national penalty – along with up to a decade in prison. Even sexting can fall under the purview of the statute. Best get your sex and dating apps deleted.
Somalia
There aren’t any laws directly affecting your access to online pornography in Somalia. There are rules that center around the right to be able to screen it in public, basically meaning you can’t.
Zimbabwe
All the way back in 1967, Zimbabwe introduced the Censorship and Entertainment Control Act which outlawed obscenity and made pornography illegal in the country. Rather than relying on outdated laws that didn’t know the internet would happen, more recently in 2019 there was cyber crime bill enacted that banned online porn. Sadly.
Rwanda
Under article 230 of the penal code, porn is technically banned in Rwanda. The reality on the ground is that there aren’t any strict enforcement of the law and Rwandans are generally able to access their porn in peace.
Burundi
Curiously, although there aren’t any specific anti-porn laws in Burundi, some of the internet service providers (ISPs) have decided to block it anyway. Almost doesn’t feel fair. There are laws about child porn and you’re not allowed to show obscene stuff to children, and rightly so.
Congo
With there having been much bigger issues in this part of the world in recent decades, there hasn’t been much of a push to regulate porn. In the Congo, archaic laws about obscenity persist but don’t cover things like access to online content. Proceed with caution, this isn’t the type of place you want to get locked up.
Central African Republic
The labor code in the CAR specifically prohibits child pornography. Unfortunately, that’s as far as the law goes on sex matters and there aren’t even any statutes about general sexual violence such as rape, meaning that porn isn’t regulated either.
Namibia
Interestingly, the number of women who watch porn in this Southern African nation equal that of men. It’s one of the few countries in the world where the percentage of female porn watchers equal that of male. Porn is both legal and accessible here, allowing for women to get theirs, too.
Botswana
From liberal to scary – in Botswana filming, producing, and even possessing porn is completely illegal. If you’re caught, you’ll be put in prison for up to four years. That hasn’t stopped some holiday resorts showing porn and upsetting lots of people, though.
Gabon
There are laws about obscenity in the penal code of Gabon. Whether these laws could directly apply to accessing online porn isn’t clear and there’s nothing that says ISPs or the government are blocking access.
Lesotho
Porn isn’t outright banned in this small, landlocked country surrounded by South Africa. That didn’t stop a government minister getting sacked for using their government issued laptop to watch porn. Marapelang Raphuthing, the director of Finance and Administration was fired for having spent time at work and elsewhere watching pornography for more than three years.
Equatorial Guinea
Search as we did, there’s no sign of any laws about indecency or obscenity in Equatorial Guinea. This basically means that there aren’t porn laws and that you can watch porn there without issue – we assume. Like most nations, it is illegal to import porn, however.
Mauritius
In the ICT Act that was brought in in 2001, anything that falls under the category of “grossly offensive or of indecent, obscene, or menacing” in nature was banned. As much as you’d want to argue that porn isn’t indecent or obscene, it’s probably not going to wash legally.
Eswatini
This small kingdom between South Africa and Mozambique only recently banned porn. In the 2018 Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Act, there are clauses that outlaw pornography.
Comoros
Another country where we looked and to no avail. There’s nothing in the Comoros criminal code that bans porn so the assumption is that you’ll be fine accessing your SinParty account whilst on these small islands.
Sao Tome and Principe
When the internet started to get organised in 1997, the .st domain was assigned to this small group of islands of West Africa. For want of anyone else who knew about the internet, the government gave the right to administer and sell the domain to a cybercafe owner in the small capital.
Fast forward to 2004, and the leader of the nation went to an ICANN conference, about domain names in South Africa. He was told that his country had the most porn pages in all of Africa, and 7.7 pages of porn per citizen.
Returning home to investigate, he discovered the internet café owner had some the .st domain to a Swedish porn company and had been raking in around US$8,000 per month from the deal. He didn’t keep the contract or any account about his shenanigans and it seems the government was able to claim back the domain.
In general, porn does seem to be legal in the country.
Seychelles
Under amendments to the penal code in 2012, porn was sadly criminalised in these idyllic islands.
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