Rise in sexual assaults in schools linked to online porn

Schools are experiencing a rise in sexual assaults because children are watching online pornography, a headteacher has warned.

The charity Dignify, which challenges the normalisation of porn, spoke to over 4,000 children between 14 and 18 years old in secondary schools across South West Hertfordshire.

Its study found that 40 per cent of those surveyed had watched porn and the average age they first watched it was twelve years old. Of those who had watched porn more than once, one in five said they had a porn “habit”, while one in eight said they were “addicted”.

Harmful

A headteacher for one of the schools surveyed said: “Schools are picking up the pieces of the harm done by the porn industry”.

She added: “We saw the number of students reporting sexual assault start to increase seven to eight years ago and at first we didn’t know why. And then working with Dignify I began to learn about the impact porn was having on our students. The correlation between sexual abuse and watching porn is very high. The majority of what they see is violent.”

Almost a third (31 per cent) of children surveyed said they had received nudes, over half of which (60 per cent) were from a stranger. A 2021 Ofsted report revealed that sexual harassment of girls was becoming normalised in schools, with boys collecting nude images of them.

A previous study of 16-21 year olds in England found that one in ten had watched pornography before the age of nine and 50 percent by the age of 13.

Age-verification

Last month, polling revealed that eight in ten Britons believe pornography websites should ensure all users are over the age of 18.

Of the 1148 adults surveyed by PeoplePolling for GB News, 78 per cent backed the use of age-verification checks to prevent children from gaining access to online pornography. Only 5 per cent disagreed with the proposal.

Lord Bethell is among a number of senior Peers seeking to amend the Government’s Online Safety Bill in order to force pornography websites to start verifying the age of users within six months of the legislation becoming law.