Floella slams porn's effect on young girls

Broadcaster Floella Benjamin has hit out at internet porn, which is causing a "seemingly unstoppable march into a moral wasteland".

Baroness Benjamin, Chancellor of the University of Exeter and an influential campaigner on behalf of children's rights, said girls were being increasingly sexualised and faced degrading behaviour by boys who filmed them performing humiliating acts.

"I believe we have opened a Pandora's box and I have no answer as to how we can reverse the trend of the sexual objectification of women and how to protect our children against its influence," she said.

The Liberal Democrat peer said violent pornography was "only a mouse click away" and was a "pan-global epidemic, underpinned by the media and the internet".

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She said the media put out "images and attitudes which relentlessly promote the idea that social emancipation and free speech equal a freedom to flaunt the boundaries of decency, self-respect and the sanctity of our bodies and our souls".

In a House of Lords debate marking International Women's Day, she said: "It is women, especially young women and girls, who are the main casualties of this.

"No wonder we witness highly sexualised behaviour by children and young people when they are being influenced so strongly to believe that stardom, success, fame, riches and happiness can be achieved by using sex as a commodity.

"Young boys are learning to see their female counterparts as sexual objects who are expected to perform the same way as they see on the porn sites which are so easily accessible to anyone with a smart phone, a computer or a tablet.

"We now have degrading behaviour by boys who force young girls to perform sexual acts, film the humiliating action and then shame the girls by putting it on the web. The girls turn to self-harm or even take their own lives. This has to stop."

Lady Benjamin said that mothers felt "disempowered by an environment that ignores their right to protect their children online" and backed a charter of parents' online rights launched by the organisation Parents Zone.

She added: "This is the sort of initiative we must promote and encourage in order to help parents, especially mothers, to fight back against a seemingly unstoppable march into a moral wasteland, and I hope that the Government will give support to this initiative."