Christian MP: ‘Online porn driving much of the child abuse we see today’

A Christian MP has called on Westminster to tackle the epidemic of pornography amid rising cases of child sexual abuse in England and Wales.

During the House of Commons’ debate on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse’s final report, Miriam Cates challenged the then Home Secretary Grant Shapps to recognise that pornography is fuelling child abuse.

She said: “When will the Government acknowledge that online pornography is an enormous public health issue, child protection issue and criminal justice issue that is driving much of the child sexual exploitation that we see today?”

‘Increasingly extreme’

The Christian MP highlighted that “child sexual exploitation and abuse are getting worse in this country. In 2020, the Internet Watch Foundation found 153,000 images of child sexual abuse online and reported a 77% increase in self-generated images of sexual abuse.

“I welcome his commitment to the Online Safety Bill, but the truth is that it is the proliferation of online pornography, which is increasingly extreme in nature, that is driving up demand for child sexual exploitation. In fact, the word “teen” is one of the most commonly searched terms on PornHub.”

In response, Shapps emphasised the Online Safety Bill’s intention to tackle the extent of child abuse material online, but failed to address the wider issue of pornography.

The Bill had been expected to be brought before Parliament before the summer, but was pushed back due to a lack of time following Boris Johnson’s resignation as Prime Minister.

Women

Earlier this year, the Children’s Commissioner for England launched an investigation into whether online pornography is fuelling sexual abuse against women.

Dame Rachel de Souza tasked officials with studying cases reported to NHS clinics and interviewing subjects to conclude whether there is a correlation between watching pornography and committing sexual abuse.

She told The Daily Express that when she began looking into the issue, she was surprised at how widespread the problem was, as well as the “degrading” nature of the material.

De Souza warned that pornography “really affects what boys think is normal and girls think is acceptable and they should be doing”, and questioned whether some of the content “normalises rape porn”.