Teachers and children's groups urge PM to curb online porn access
Online Safety
Given the growing body of research (including research commissioned by the Government) demonstrating a clear association between pornography consumption and a higher incidence of violence against women and girls, the failure to implement Part 3, in the absence of alternative protections, has become unsustainable.'
Head teachers, children's groups and parliamentarians have called on the Prime Minister to introduce age verification on online porn sites.
In a letter to Boris Johnson, they demand that he use next week's Queen's Speech to also introduce restrictions on extreme porn.
Led by Baroness Benjamin, who CARE has been supporting as she has championed the issue of online safety in the Lords, other signatories include former digital Minister Margot James, Dr Javed Khan the CEO of Barnardo's and Dr Joseph Spence, the Master of Dulwich College in south London.
They argue there's a clear link between use of pornography and violence against women and girls.
While the Government has plans to introduce a new Online Harms Bill, this will not be in place until at least 2024.
Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act by contrast has already been passed by MPs and Peers and would ensure protections could be in place much quicker.
The signatories say:
The last two months have raised very serious concerns about the safety of women and children in relation to sexual violence. While it is too early to talk in depth about what happened to Sarah Everard, it is clear from the outpouring of stories from women across the country following her death that a very large proportion of attacks on women are sexually motivated.
'We have also witnessed the impact of the 'Everyone's Invited' website, with over 10,000 rape culture testimonies and revelations about its impact on children through the recent Centre for Social Justice report.
'In this context, given the growing body of research (including research commissioned by the Government) demonstrating a clear association between pornography consumption and a higher incidence of violence against women and girls, the failure to implement Part 3, in the absence of alternative protections, has become unsustainable.'
The Government is already facing a possible judicial review over its failure to implement age verification.
Yesterday CARE welcomed the potential legal challenge, with Chief Communications Officer, James Mildred, telling Premier:
On the 16th of October 2019, for inexplicable reasons yet to be fully explained, the government just dropped it, abandoned it completely. And all they've said since then, is that they're going to come up with something better through their new Online Harms Bill, which is yet to be published. And by the time that's been debated, and it's going to be a huge debate because of issues around free speech, it's going to be probably at least three to four years from now. So the government is failing children, it's failing women, it's failing to protect people online properly. So I very much hope that this judicial review goes ahead."
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Teachers and children's groups urge PM to curb online porn access