Cartoon characters used to hook 6-year-olds on porn

Pornographic content featuring popular children’s characters is widely available online, a new report has revealed.

Research published by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) found that 50 per cent of porn websites visited by UK children aged six to twelve specialised in sexually explicit cartoons.

The Christian Institute is calling on the Government to do more to protect children from pornography under its Online Safety Bill, which returned to the House of Commons last week.

The Incredibles

The BBFC investigation uncovered “graphic references to sexual violence and child sexual abuse” in its investigation of some of the most-visited pornography sites accessed by under-18s in the UK.

“In certain cases”, it said, “there were indicators that suggested the material on offer might constitute prohibited images of children, which are illegal to possess in the UK.”

Nearly half of the top 100 pornography sites viewed by all ages carried content based on well-known characters from Frozen, The Simpsons, Spider Man and the Incredibles.

Grooming

In a separate paper sponsored by the BBFC, academics based at the University of Lincoln concluded that non-photographic images such as cartoons can be used to groom children sexually.

David Austin, the BBFC’s chief executive, said: “These are characters beloved by children and children are being exposed to the characters in pornographic scenarios on pornographic websites.”

He also said: “These findings will be concerning to read, but we hope that our research will increase awareness of potentially harmful content, in support of action to tackle its availability online.”

‘Unprecedented sexual experiment’

The news emerged as Miriam Cates MP called for legislation to be put in place to better protect children from seeing pornography on the internet.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Mrs Cates stated: “Online pornography is now accessed by 1.4 million UK children every month and a shocking 50 per cent of 12-year-olds have seen it, with alarming consequences.”

Calling for robust age verification checks under the Government’s Online Safety Bill, she said that it was time for this “unprecedented sexual experiment on our children” to end.

Online Safety Bill

Last month,  The Christian Institute’s Simon Calvert said that the latest Government announcements “seem to make important improvements” to the Online Safety Bill “that will make tech companies do more to stop our youngsters being damaged”.

But, Mr Calvert, observed that “it is worth remembering that back in 2017 Parliament passed a law to force porn sites to age verify their users and those provisions were never implemented.

“This was a major missed opportunity that could have protected hundreds of thousands of children over the last five years. And we remain frustrated at the Government’s refusal to clarify and strengthen the porn protections in this Bill for children.”