Children’s tsar orders inquiry in crackdown on online porn
THE Children’s Commissioner is launching a major inquiry into online pornography amid concerns that it is fuelling sexual abuse and violence against women.
Dame Rachel de Souza has asked officials to investigate whether hardcore web imagery “normalises” aggressive sexual behaviour.
Her team will trawl through cases reported to NHS abuse referral clinics and interview victims and perpetrators of peer-on-peer attacks.
The move comes as a committee of MPs probes whether extreme porn has led to a surge in violence against women and girls.
Dame Rachel is determined to prevent its widespread access to youngsters. She told the
Daily Express: “When I started looking into this topic, I was really surprised at how widespread it was and the nature of the material... degrading material.
“It really affects what boys think is normal and girls think is acceptable and they should be doing. There are issues around consent and whether it normalises rape porn.”
She added: “We are going to talk to the referral clinics to see whether they are seeing a link between peeron-peer sexual abuse and watching pornography. I want to find out whether there is a correlation.”
The former headteacher, who has compared giving children porn access to handing them “a weapon”, cited research showing “how aggressive mainstream pornography can be”.
Last year, a Durham University analysis of 150,000 videos on porn websites found one in eight titles was themed around violent, coercive and non-consensual sex.
Dame Rachel said: “That is 12 per cent of videos... showing violence, degradation of women and illegal acts including rape.”
She wants the Government’s Online Safety Bill to force operators to fit age-verification software on sites and will push for better teaching in schools about the dangers of pornography and issues of consent and sexual violence.
The all-party Parliamentary group on commercial sexual exploitation was launched last year after Sarah Everard was raped and murdered by Met Police officerWayne Couzens.