Risk to a complete generation of children

The way children in care homes have become involved with paedophile gangs shows there is something sadly wrong with our care system.

But there is another serious threat to a complete generation of children that demands urgent attention. I refer to online pornography.

In a recent investigation, a sex education consultant who is regularly asked into schools to discuss sex and relationships went into a class of 20 youngsters aged 13 and 14 at a highly regarded specialist sports college in the North of England. These were not children in care from broken homes but children neatly dressed, all in school uniform, from apparently good homes.

To find out how much they knew, he asked them to write an A to Z of sexual terms they were familiar with. They had a more extensive range of sexual terms than any adult in the room - including the sexual education consultant. Every one of the 20, boys and girls, had watched pornography.

A group of children aged 14 and 15 at the school said there was no parental control on the internet at home. Their parents trusted them. Their parents had no idea what they were watching and would be shocked if they knew.

Pornography is highly addictive. We are going to see a complete generation addicted to pornography, sexually violent and lacking in social responsibility.

Will someone please open their eyes, open their ears and do something?

The curse that threatens all our children

The internet is awash with pornography.

The US citizen is well informed of the extent of internet porn. Charisma News, a leading American Christian magazine, says that

* The internet pornography business makes more money than top companies Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, eBay, Google and Yahoo combined.

*  About 12 per cent of the world's websites offer pornographic material.

* The average age at which children first see pornographic material is 11. Ninety per cent of those from eight to 16 say they have viewed it online.

*  Twenty-one per cent of Christian girls admitted to sending a naked photograph of themselves to someone else by their mobile phone.

An article in the Christian Post, another US Christian magazine, says - can you believe this? - that according to a survey 50 per cent of Christian men and 20 per cent of Christian women are addicted to pornography.

Trying to find similarly detailed figures regarding the situation in Britain seems more difficult. It is suggested that British teenagers spend an average of 87 hours a year looking at internet pornography, and that four out of five regularly access pornographic material online. A recent report showed that 40 per cent of children under 12 have seen pornographic images online.

When I contacted people in Britain whose ministry is to pornography addicts, all they seemed able to say was that they wouldn't be surprised if the figures here were similar to those in the United States.

UK charities have been pleading for action for long enough. They favour automatic anti-pornography filters used by internet service providers. Internet service providers generally have resisted, no doubt because of the amount of money to be made.

Earlier this year Prime Minister David Cameron instructed Government officials to look into the possibility of such filters being used by internet service providers, which would mean that adults wanting to see pornography would have to "opt in" with their provider for the service.

Last Friday the Government announced rather quietly that proposals for such a block on pornography had been rejected. The Government's excuses: first, parents would then assume that the internet was safe for their children; second, an automatic block might also prevent children having access to "helpful information on sexual health or sexual identity." Instead, the Government had decided, parents should use internet filters if their children were using computers at home.

Countless thousands, if not millions, of children are having their lives ruined.

Will someone please stand up and sort out this situation?

'Terrible' threat to Britain's children

It seems to me that the Government has talked a lot about pornography on the internet and done precious little about it.

Sue Berelowitz, England's Deputy Children's Commissioner, who has been conducting research for a report due out in September, told MPs that sexual exploitation of children is happening all over the country, much of it fuelled by children accessing extreme pornography on the internet.

There were parts of London where children from the age of 11 expected to have to indulge in sexual activity with line-ups of boys for up to two hours at a time. It was "quite common" for girls to be lured via internet chat rooms to meet a friend, only to be met by a group of boys and gang raped in a park.

"What is being done is so terrible that people need to lay aside their denial."

She said children could get anything they liked on their mobile phones, which was affecting children's thresholds of what they think is normal behaviour.

A parliamentary inquiry revealed that almost one in three children aged 10 or under had seen sexual images online, and suggested that four out of five children from 14 to 16 access online pornography.

According to the Daily Mail website, hundreds of millions of pages on the web have sexual content, and British teenagers spend an average of 87 hours a year looking at internet pornography.

Only 37 per cent of families in the UK had set up any sort of parental controls on their teenagers' computers.

For the children's sake, something needs to be done about internet pornography. Now.

A disaster looming for Britain's children

Britain is preparing to reap a terrible harvest, and most people are sitting back and watching it happen.

A Government report shows that

One in three 10-year-olds has seen explicit internet pornography;

Four out of five 16-year-old boys and girls regularly access porn online;

At one school pupils swapping hardcore images on memory sticks was "absolutely rife";

The Portland Clinic in London said 26 per cent of young people coming to it for psychological treatment were hooked on online porn.

This is the first generation of children to be subject to such a barrage of obscenity. Miranda Suit, of the campaign group Safermedia, said: "This generation is going through an experiment. No one knows how they will survive this unprecedented assault on their sexual development. They are guinea pigs for the next generation."

Internet service providers (the people who provide access to the internet for computer users) have largely refused to do anything about it. Prime Minister David Cameron has spoken often about it, but appears to have achieved nothing.

Won't someone stand up for that which is clean, decent and godly?

If you are concerned to protect your children from online pornography, see here and read the article here, including the comments attached.