This story is from Britain, but I'm sure it is valid for allWestern countries. Pornography is way too easy to find even for prepubescent boys. That should not be.
Primary schools need help tackling 'widespread' pupil-on-pupil sex abuse blamed on porn, charities warn
Schools must be given clearer guidance on how to deal with sexual abuse by pupils on pupils, which is 'so widespread as to be normalised,' women's charities have demanded.
School sexual violence and abuse is even a problem in primary schools, with online pornography identified as a key factor in the worrying issue.
Now several charities, including Rape Crisis, have written to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson and Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, calling on improved statutory guidance for schools on what to do when both victim and perpetrator are pupils.
In 2016 an inquiry by MPs found that 600 rapes had been reported in schools over a three-year period.
It also found that 59 per cent of girls and young women aged 13-21 reported they had faced some form of sexual harassment in school or college the year before.
The letter explains that handling school sexual abuse is 'exacerbated' when police don't charge anyone or when the court process is finished.
Charities warn that 'schools tend to treat no further action decisions as cause to simply 'go back to normal.'
Victims can be 're-traumatised' by the school which is 'responsible for providing safety' and young boys responsible for the abuse 'are not provided with appropriate support to manage their behaviour.'
Several have written to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson (pictured) and Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, calling on improved statutory guidance for schools on pupil-on-pupil sex abuse
School sexual violence and abuse is even a problem in primary schools, with online pornography identified as a key factor in the worrying issue (file image)
In primary schools where children are often under the age of criminal responsibility (age ten) and cannot be prosecuted, 'schools too often end up categorising serious sexual violence as a form of age-related (sexual) exploration,' the letter warns.
It adds that with the onus left on parents to give support, some of the 'very youngest victim-survivors are left unsupported, and schools fail to learn and prevent future incidents from occurring'.
Improved official guidance – currently under review by the Government – is desperately needed, the charities argue.
'Schools and teachers do not know what effective intervention and/or safeguarding look like in practice because they do not have the appropriate guidance on how to approach peer-on-peer sexual abuse'.
Ciara Bergman, chief executive of Rape Crisis, said: 'It needs to be made clear that children who have been sexually assaulted or abused at school are entitled to a supportive response from their school, irrespective of any criminal justice processes.'
She added: 'No form of play should ever be harmful to a child. Dismissing sexual abuse in this way represents a misunderstanding of the nature and impact of peer-on-peer sexual abuse.'
The letter was also signed by the heads of Rights of Women, non-profit Imkaan, the Centre for Women's Justice and specialist solicitor Andrew Lord.
Mr Lord from law firm Leigh Day said: 'This is an issue that policymakers have known about for several years now, and yet we are still not fully grappling with how to tackle this in a meaningful way. I continue to hear from families of those impacted by child-on-child abuse on a frequent basis, in schools up and down the country. This issue is not going away any time soon without concrete and bold action.'
Charities warn that 'schools tend to treat no further action decisions as cause to simply 'go back to normal' (file image)
The official guidance for relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) being taught in schools is currently under review following a consultation last summer.
A Department for Education spokesman said: 'All sexual abuse is abhorrent, and this government is determined to root it out as part of its mission to halve violence against women and girls within a decade.
I'll bet that they don't even slow down the growth of violence against women and girls in a decade.
'Every pupil should feel safe and protected at school, and it's essential that any allegations of sexual abuse are dealt with sensitively and properly.
At the very least an abused child should never have to come in contact with their abuser again.
'We have robust statutory safeguarding guidance in place that schools must follow to keep children safe from abuse and harassment, as well as guidance and support for schools to create strong behaviour expectations, to make clear sexually abusive language or behaviour are never acceptable.'
Then why isn't it working?
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A horrifying child sexual assault trend. SCOTUS can help
In 2023 Texas passed House Bill 1181 making it mandatory for adult websites to employ rigorous age verification processes to ensure users are over 18. The Free Speech Coalition (FSC), a non-profit, non-partisan trade association for the adult industry, has sued the state of Texas, arguing that this legislation violates the First Amendment. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) heard this case, FSC v. Paxton, on January 15, 2025. They will decide whether the court of appeals erred as a matter of law in applying rational-basis review, instead of strict scrutiny, to a law burdening adults’ access to protected speech.
Ultimately, SCOTUS will decide if protecting children from harmful pornographic content on the internet is illegal.
Age verification is not identity verification. Verifying age requires minimal time and effort, most options take less than a minute. The technology for age verification is cutting-edge and does not collect, store, or sell data. The question is who will pay the price to protect our children? Will it be adults that are required to use less than a minute to prove their age, or will it be our children bearing the burden of long term harmful consequences?
Protecting children from porn has been a law in the U.S. for nearly 57 years. In 1968, the United States Supreme Court decided in Ginsberg v. New York that although pornographic materials like Hustler and Playboy magazines were protected for adults under the First Amendment, they were obscene for children. In short, they were to be treated like alcohol and cigarettes — the buyer is required to show an ID or verify their age to purchase. Unfortunately for children, pornographic content sold in brick-and-mortar stores has exponentially decreased over the past few decades, and so have the safeguards protecting children.
Currently, children access pornographic content online at rates that are difficult to comprehend. One recent report from 2023 showed that at least 15% of teens said they viewed online pornography at age 10 or younger. An additional survey from 2020 reported that 54% of teens had viewed pornography by age 13. Taken together, the studies confirm that the average age of exposure to online pornography for children is between the ages of seven and eleven.
I wish they had filtered out girls from those data. I am willing to bet that if you sampled only boys those numbers would be in the 80s or 90s.
Access isn't the only thing that has changed. Pornographic content is increasingly more violent. Within a matter of seconds, a child or teen can, intentionally or unintentionally, view pornographic videos of rape porn fantasy, or murder skit porn. This popular type of content is extremely violent pornography that depicts murder, necrophilia, morgue fantasy sex, and garrote strangling.
While it may be legal and First Amendment-protected content for adults, it certainly is not for children. The sheer volume of this explicit content should make anyone concerned. Boasting over 42 million pornographic websites that host over 428 million web pages of pornography, the internet is now an endless abyss of explicit content and a far cry from what SCOTUS already deemed obscene for children in 1968. The protected adult content is one thing, but what about the illegal content that is not protected?
In 2020 Ruben Andre Garcia was sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiring with the owners of GirlsDoPorn to sex traffic women and girls to appear in sex videos for adult websites — including Pornhub. GirlsDoPorn was a wildly popular Pornhub channel that had over 680 million views. Michael James Pratt, the owner of GirlsDoPorn, was finally arrested in Spain in 2022 after being on the FBI’s top ten most wanted list. Among the long list of his charges are: sex trafficking a minor by force, fraud or coercion, production of child pornography, and 15 counts of sex trafficking.
Sadly, this is not the only case. In recent years the growing number of lawsuits against mainstream porn sites, like Pornhub, are only increasing. Brave survivors of sexual assault, sex trafficking, and child sexual exploitation are speaking out and exposing how much online pornography is illegal — and therefore not protected under the First Amendment. The mother of a missing 15-year-old Florida girl lived this nightmare herself. She found her daughter on Pornhub, in 58 sex videos — some of which were of her sex trafficker raping her.
While writing my amicus brief that focuses on the horrifying legal and illegal genres and content of mainstream pornography, I could not help but be shocked that protecting our children from such content is even a controversial discussion — much less a case before SCOTUS. Historically, children have been protected from high-risk industries, including the porn industry — otherwise known as the “adult industry” — for good reason. The abundance of evidence is clear; it is not safe for children.
Christina Rangel is the Director of Public Policy at Exodus Cry, advocating for legislation to combat sex trafficking and sexual exploitation worldwide. With over thirteen years of experience fighting sexual exploitation in nine countries, Christina brings her expertise along with her personal experience to the fight against sexual exploitation. For seven years she focused on building effective resources for victims of sex trafficking as well as support for families in Mexico that are searching for their forcibly disappeared children. Through partnerships with the US Department of Justice, FBI, and other local non-profits Christina has provided training to over 3,000 law enforcement and first responders in the United States and Mexico. Her direct work with victims in Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, and the United States gives her a unique access to effectively fight sex trafficking through a human rights lens. She holds a Master’s degree in International Human Rights Law from Oxford and resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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