Vulvas spark calls for censorship review

THERE are calls for Australia's censorship laws to be reviewed after a university newspaper was pulled from the shelves for featuring vulvas on its cover.

THE removal from the shelves of a student newspaper featuring the genitals of 18 women on its cover has sparked calls for a review of Australian censorship laws.

The Sydney University newspaper Honi Soit displayed the images of the vulvas, belonging to students at the university, on the cover of its current issue in what its editors said was a bid to empower women and stop them feeling bad about their bodies.

However it was pulled from the shelves after the Students Representative Council (SRC) received legal advice that the publication could be indecent or obscene and cause offence.

In a statement, Greens MPs Lee Rhiannon and Mehreen Faruqi said the cover was part of a tradition of student publications challenging accepted conventions and taking on issues the mainstream media wouldn't touch.

"While Australian laws are used to suggest that there is something offensive about the body of a woman, actions like that taken by Honi Soit will be needed," the MPs said in a statement on Friday.

"This issue of Honi Soit should be distributed to Sydney University students without further delay.

"This incident highlights the need to reconsider and review Australia's censorship laws."

The statement was also signed by Greens NSW senate candidate Cate Faehrmann and journalist and researcher Wendy Bacon, a former editor of the University of NSW student paper Tharunka.