Pornography

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack—especially with regard to his comments on the impact on children. The pornography industry is a lucrative and thriving business with a staggering estimated worth of $97 billion, according to an NBC report. It sacrifices at its altar our many vulnerable children and families. This begs the question about how we define freedom of expression and what cost we are prepared to pay to protect our children.

I wish to express my gratitude to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester for calling our attention to this and for his profoundly thoughtful contribution. I echo the voice of many when I say that pornography is one of the most detrimental factors eroding the integrity of childhood, specifically with the rise of access over the net, yet we find that the terminology in law remains contested. How explicit does the content have to be for us to consider material as pornographic and criminal? I am not an expert but my contribution today is based on my long-standing professional experience of caring for children and families forced to deal with sexual violence and abuse, where as social workers we were at the cruel end of helping families come to term with the damage caused to children by being sexually assaulted. Even the most socially liberated society has to be deeply disturbed by the NSPCC survey of 2,000 young people speaking of watching porn comfortably as a normalised behaviour, and its consequences as detailed by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer.

The Authority for Television On Demand’s 2014 report, For Adults Only?, found that 200,000 children aged between six and 15 had visited a pornographic website in December 2013. This is supported by the results in the IPPR report, Young People, Sex and Relationships, which showed that, out of 500 18 year-olds, eight out of 10 believed that it was easy to accidentally view porn on the internet.

The shift of pornography from sex shops to smartphones can now impact on children and young people directly, thereby making it difficult to manage and control access even if you are the most vigilant of parents. I do not accept that there is no link between what consenting adults choose to do in private and the availability of porn. No matter how much our society advances, we must have unequivocal standards about exposing children and young people to the danger of porn. Steadily we have seen and heard of the thousands of children and young people being groomed and raped while only some of the perpetrators have been caught and put to justice.

Seven men belonging to what was described as the worst ever paedophile ring were jailed recently for a total of 107 years for raping babies and toddlers. They shared indecent images and videos of children being abused, communicating via their smartphones. The evidence shows that their targets and victims were babies and infants. The sentence cannot begin to reflect what those babies and infants will suffer for the entirety of their lives. In September 2014 a man pleaded guilty to arranging and facilitating the commission of child sex offences and making and possessing indecent images of children. In a Norwich court, a woman that the court described as depraved was convicted on 23 accounts, including rape and inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.

The effects of pornography passes the effects that it has on the individual on to their families, thereby impacting all of us as a society, something more eloquently depicted by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester. The Naked Truth research on family impact has already been noted by noble Lords, with family breakdown services costing the UK £47 billion and more each year. What preventive measures are in place to address this as part of our social services response and empower women’s organisations to equip them to deal with the issue of pornography?

End Violence Against Women and many other charities have drawn clear links between pornography and negative attitudes towards women, and state that it depicts allowing groping, touching and exposing as acceptable and fun, resulting in sexual violence against women. The IPPR report found that 70% of respondents believed that pornography had a damaging effect on how people view sex. As has been said, the report also found that 72% of respondents believed that it raised unrealistic expectations of sex, which can have damaging effects on their sexual experiences.

In the summer I attended a seminar on revenge porn, again mostly affecting women. I take the opportunity to commend the efforts of the lawyer Dr Ann Olivarius, who is leading a team that is deeply committed to using civil law to bring an end to revenge pornography. In representing YouTube presenter Chrissy Chambers in the first civil case against a perpetrator of revenge pornography, they hope to pioneer a new civil law framework that will permit victims to seek redress for the harm they have experienced when prosecutors are too overburdened to pursue criminal charges. They have also identified ways to improve the law so that it can be a more meaningful deterrent. Now the law requires that anyone charged must “intend to cause distress” to the specific person depicted, which means that the hundreds of people who spread these images on the internet and social media for money or just for kicks get away with it. Allowing victims to get injunctions against perpetrators would mean that the images could be taken down before they circulated widely. This is very important to victims. It is clear that a robust civil law can act as a deterrent while also enabling victims to receive financial compensation to help them to rebuild their lives.

I welcome the suggestion to change the main focus of the law from the victim’s distress and the perpetrator’s intent to whether the victim gave consent. That way, all the other people who contribute to the harm by sharing the images via social media, or upload them to additional websites, could also be prosecuted. Since April 2015 more than 200 incidents of revenge porn have been reported to the police, with some victims as young as 12. However, the actual number may be much higher as many cases go unreported. Can Her Majesty’s Government disclose the number of revenge porn incidents reported to the Metropolitan Police? What more does the Minister believe the Government can do so that the police take these reports seriously? Would the Minister be willing to meet Dr Ann Olivarius and her team to discuss these matters?

I very much hope that we can begin to arrest any further development of the porn industry itself and put the safeguarding of children and young people before the profits and lusts of those who are willing to overlook and question its impact of rape and torture on children.