Children’s Commissioner: Porn fuelling sexual harassment in schools – The Christian Institute

June 2020

Children’s easy access to online pornography is fuelling sexual harassment in schools, England’s Children’s Commissioner has warned.

Dame Rachel de Souza said violent pornography is shaping pupils’ expectations of relationships and ‘normal’ behaviour.

An Ofsted report recently revealed that sexual harassment of girls has become normalised in schools, and boys collect nude images of them like a card game.

‘Traumatised’

De Souza urged the Government to introduce age-verification checks on websites to prevent children from accessing pornography.

She said: “In the real world, adults wouldn’t leave something dangerous or inappropriate lying around for children to stumble upon – why should the internet be different?”

a generation of traumatised young women and emotionally deadened young men

Former Sunday Times editorial director Eleanor Mills highlighted that the issue became worse in lockdown when children interacted solely through social media with easy access to explicit material online.

She added: “The evidence of the behaviour this causes is now clear; a generation of traumatised young women and emotionally deadened young men.”

Sex education

The Christian Institute’s Deputy Director for Public Affairs Simon Calvert blamed the sex education industry for being “obsessed with explicitness and hostile to the Christian sexual ethic”.

He said: “If kids are being told in school that using pornography is normal and healthy, as many sex education professionals say, how can we be surprised when they use it and then try to act it out?”

Mr Calvert urged Ofsted to ensure that teaching includes opportunities to explain the benefits of self-control and marriage.

In March, the Government admitted that its proposed Online Safety Bill would not require commercial porn websites to implement age-verification checks for their users.