Submission to the Inquiry “Impact of online on children” Being conducted by the Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications

From

Salt Shakers,

Mrs Jenny Stokes

Research Director.

Introduction and Overview

Online pornography, with its graphic content and easy accessibility on smartphones and tablets, as well as computers, is having a drastic impact on children and young people.

The ability to access pornography without anyone knowing, in privacy and at any time, has led to huge, unintended consequences.

The innocence of children and young people is being destroyed, with them being able to access a wide range of explicit images and film – at a time when they are often unable to process or understand the harm that it is doing to them.

Children who are exposed to pornography are sexualised prematurely, with boys often expecting girls to ‘do’ what they have seen online.

Our recommendation is that further research be undertaken, in consultation with experts such as Dr Michael Flood, to determine the extent of the problem and possible solutions.

The protection of children is our priority. To curb the unlimited access to disturbing pornographic images, we recommend that a ‘clean-feed’ internet be provided to all Australians, with adults over the age of 18 able to ‘opt-in’ if they choose to view pornography online.

1 The harm done to children

The harm done to children by being exposed to pornography of any sort, but particularly the access to online pornography, is profound.

It covers a number of areas:

- The adverse impact on the development of proper sexual relationships with others

- The destroying of the innocence of children

- The mental health problems that arise from watching pornography

This is a public health crisis.

The evidence of the impact of pornography on children

A great amount of evidence, about the availability of online pornography, and the devastating consequences it has for young people, was presented at the recent Symposium held in Sydney on the subject ‘Pornography and harms to children and young people’.

We urge the Committee to read, watch and review the material presented at the Symposium and consult with the speakers at the conference.

We expect that the speakers at the conference will be making submissions to the Inquiry and we support the submissions they make.

The Symposium home page is http://www.pornharmskids.org.au/

As just one example, an article by Melinda Tankard Reist, in the media this week, highlights the problem…

Growing Up in Pornland: Girls Have Had It with Porn Conditioned Boys

ABC, 7/3/2016. http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2016/03/07/4420147.htm

We urge the Committee to read this article.

Melinda writes:

“[I want] better education regarding for both boys and girls [and] information about pornography, and the way it influences harmful sexual practices."

These are the words of Lucy, aged 15, one of 600 young Australian women and girls who took part in a just-released survey commissioned by Plan Australia and Our Watch. The survey, conducted by Ipsos, gathered responses from the girls and young women aged 15-19 in all states and territories….”

2 A reflection – from our ministry …

Twenty one years ago, when we started our ministry, Salt Shakers (a Christian Ethics ministry) pornography was much harder to access – it was mostly in magazines or DVDs…

When our ministry of Salt Shakers started, we ran a number of campaigns to highlight the problems of pornography…

Magazines were the primary source of pornography. They were several classifications of these.

We monitored the magazines available in newsagents. There were (and still are) several categories – Unclassified, Category 1 and Category 2. Only the ‘Unclassified’ magazines could be out on open display. In order to buy the Category 1 or Category 2 magazines, a person had to go into a restricted ‘Adults Only’ area.

We urged shops to put these magazines behind the counter, instead of on open shelves where children could see them.

Magazines that were on open display had to have black plastic over any images that were deemed by the classifiers to be ‘unsuitable’ for public viewing.

Occasionally we would find ‘Classified magazines’ in the Open area – and, after being notified, police would intervene to remove them from the shelves.

Regarding DVDs…

In adult sex shops, X rated videos/DVDs (with actual sex acts) are not allowed to be sold, except in the ACT and the NT. Shops found selling them faced huge fines. We were in contact with people who monitored these – and police regularly confiscated DVD from such shops, market stall and so on…

Access to the internet in the home

Fifteen years ago, we would advise parents to monitor the internet use of their children – and to ensure that computers were not in bedrooms!

Now things have changed – children have phones and tablets – it is much, much more difficult for parents to monitor internet use and to ensure they aren’t exposed to pornography.

A personal reflection

On a personal level, I was a secondary school teacher for more than 20 years. One day, whilst I was on yard duty, I noticed a cluster of Year 7 boys around a locker at lunch time. Further investigation revealed that they were looking at a pornographic magazine that was in the locker of one of the boys. The magazine was duly confiscated.

3 When the teacher in charge of the Year level investigated, she found that the boy had been in the newsagent that morning, and had persuaded another customer to buy a pornographic magazine on his behalf and gave her the money. This was a magazine that was on open display, and unclassified such as or Penthouse.

He wasn’t very happy that the customer who bought the magazine for him had kept the change! Plus, of course, that the magazine was now confiscated!

This story highlights just how hard it was for young people to obtain pornography.

Access to pornography today

However, today, the boy (and all his friends) would have a smartphone (and/or a tablet or laptop) with full internet access.

Type a word into the search engine and a full range of pornography is available to view.

Extreme images and videos of every type, including sado- masochism and bondage.

It’s not just the really extreme unclassified material that is harmful. Even images that were once in Playboy have significant impact on the young mind and their ability to form healthy relationships.

There are many stories I could tell, from parents who have come to us with accounts of their children and pornography – paten it has meant the young person has needed extensive and intensive counselling to recover a normal and balanced approach to respect and relationships.

However, confidentiality means I cannot go into the detail.

Pornography leads children to experiment sexually and they often want their sexual partners to act out the things they have seen on pornographic images and film.

This is spelt out in the article by Melinda Tankard-Reist (above).

Restrictions (or lack of ) on the internet

Since the rise of the internet, the idea of these restrictions on the sale and display of pornography in public places seems almost futile.

The internet meant that pornography could be uploaded from countries that have no restrictions and viewed by anyone, anywhere in the world. Most countries resisted attempting to try and control such an international spread and availability of such pornography.

In Australia, some commendable attempts were made to restrict the most offensive pornography, that which would be ‘Refused Classification’ because it contained extreme and explicit material.

4 But in order to ban and eliminate such material, each website had to be ‘located’ and ‘removed’ individually – an extremely difficult task.

With the development of new technology, there is now the possibility of implementing internet feeds that are ‘pornography free’. This has recently been set up in the UK and is operating successfully.

How can we protect children from the damaging effects of online pornography?

We recommend that the internet service providers should be required to provide a default option of pre-filtered service to block pornography and other sites harmful for children. Adults who wish to access online pornography can opt-in to view and receive such material.

In order to enforce this, and prevent children accessing online pornography, all pornographic websites should have ‘age verification’ procedures that are ‘provable’ – not just stating ‘I am over 18’!

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