The Student Room Group

MPs told porn to blame for child rape epidemic sweeping britain.

Serious child sex abuse is rife across Britain, with young attackers re-enacting scenes of extreme pornography they have seen on their mobile phones, MPs were told yesterday.

Sue Berelowitz, the Deputy Children's Commissioner, said.

"We should start from the assumption that children are being sexually exploited right the way across the country," she said. "It is very sadistic, it is very violent, it is very, very ugly."

In parts of London, Ms Berelowitz said, "children expect to have to perform oral sex on line-ups of boys, up to two hours at a time, from the age of 11".

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.

"Then another group of boys come, they take her to another part of the park and she is serially raped again," she said.

"I wish I could say to you that such things are uncommon but I'm afraid they are quite common."

The deputy commissioner told the MPs that "what is being done is so terrible that people need to lay aside their denial" or risk victims being disbelieved.

Victims numbered in the "thousands" rather than "hundreds".

Young people were often acting out scenes they had seen in online pornography, she added.

In one case, boys aged 14 and 15 were "summoned" via Blackberry Messenger to the gang rape of a "very, very young girl" which lasted several days.

"Boys were being called while some were raping the girl to say 'Come, come, come, you can join in too' and they were arriving and elbowing each other out of the way to rape her."

In another case, older men were using young male gang members as a "front line" in a wider abuse network, and had even forced two of the boys to have sex and filmed it on a mobile phone to ensure their compliance.

Ms Berelowitz said: "Parents may think they can control what's going on because they can have a blockage on the computer, but the reality is children can get anything they like on their mobile phones. And they are.

"It has definitely affected children's thresholds of what they think is normal."


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18422204

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2158455/Online-porn-turning-children-sex-attackers-Young-act-depraved-scenes-web-says-Deputy-Childrens-Commissioner.html
(edited 11 years ago)

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1
It seems TSR has had it's fill.
Reply 2
Children shouldn't be watching porn, and that responsibility lies with the parents. What else can they expect to be done? Ban porn for everyone?
Reply 3
There's no epidemic, this is just bull**** political distortion. There could have been a rise, I don't deny that, but a raise doesn't equal epidemic. Some statistics would be nice. Gang rape aren't caused by pornography. There caused by mob mentality and deindividuation. This is the same for adults ganging raping e.g. Woodstock 99. All you need is 1 person to trigger it.
Blaming porn for rape is like blaming video games for violence. As in, not really that viable. There might be a bit of influence but really there's only so much blame you can lay on such things. To make it seems like this huge epidemic (if that's even the right word) is the fault of porn is a bit silly.
I've been watching porn since I was an early teenager and I've never raped anyone or sexually abused anyone just like how playing Grand Theft Auto has never made me go carjacking.
Reply 5
i think people are missing the point. sure, just because children are watching porn it does not mean that they will automatically turn into rapists.

but the ready availability of hardcore porn is creating a culture where more and more children believe that it is ok to rape people. hardcore porn, like the report said, is normalising this sort of extreme behaviour in their eyes.

no one is suggesting porn should be banned, but clearly something needs to be done to stope be so readily available.

also, very tough sentences need to be handed out to those who commit these sort of crimes as a deterrent.
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by thinbeard

but the ready availability of hardcore porn is creating a culture where more and more children believe that it is ok to rape people. hardcore porn, like the report said, is normalising this sort of extreme behaviour in their eyes.


And where is your evidence for that statement?
I've never seen hardcore porn before...what do they mean by it?..like punching people or what?
Reply 8
Without wanting to trivialise or downplay the horror of child rape...

I call bull**** to this report. According to the BBC article the report cites an unnamed police officer claiming "There isn't a town, village or hamlet in which children are not being sexually exploited." I'd really like to see some significant evidence of this.

The most I could find was a report online saying that 20,000 complaints are made to the police each year. And that is 20,000 lives being ruined a year which is completely revolting. However, there are more than 10 million children in the country. I simply can't see how the claims in this report are backed up by the facts on the ground. It sounds to me like the authors are deliberately exaggerating. Whether its just to gain more attention (in a good way) or because they think they'll get more money and power for themselves I don't know.

But this mass hysteria over paedophilia really needs to stop before people (and mostly children) start to majorly suffer.
Reply 9
This is absurd. If a child watches a film of people having sex of any description and then reaches the conclusion "It must be OK to gang rape someone" why the hell would we conclude that the fault lies with the film or its producers?! The child is clearly BONKERS and needs some serious education. If a kid watches a horror film and then reenacts a killing, it's not the horror film's fault - the child is just a very small sociopath!
If anyone watches any form of entertainment and doesn't understand that it wasn't created as a guidebook of how to act in the real world they simply don't understand basic rules about how to be a person.
Original post by jakemittle
I've never seen hardcore porn before...what do they mean by it?..like punching people or what?


hardcore porn is any porn with actual sex
softcore is basically just nudity/oral
Children have been watching porn on the internet since the beginning of time. Why are MPs and pseudo-scientists suddenly saying porn is causing this 'sudden surge' in sex offences?
Reply 12
The whole porn thing is a smoke screen. Anyone that's been reading the news recently knows where the epidemic is coming from. Community cohesion is more important than children getting raped remember.
It's up to the parents to make sure their children do not have access to porn.
Reply 14
Original post by Lollyage
Children shouldn't be watching porn, and that responsibility lies with the parents. What else can they expect to be done? Ban porn for everyone?


This exactly I am ****ing sick of people saying that such a thing is responsible for children behaving that way and yes that is true, what children see does influence them but where the **** are these children's parents?! Their kid, their responsibility, keep a better eye on your child, it's not that hard.
Original post by Mendeleev's Table
Children have been watching porn on the internet since the beginning of time. Why are MPs and pseudo-scientists suddenly saying porn is causing this 'sudden surge' in sex offences?


:s-smilie:

You do know the Internet is a relatively recent invention, right?
Original post by UniOfLife
:s-smilie:

You do know the Internet is a relatively recent invention, right?


....Hyperbole
Reply 17
And as Bonged said

This is a smoke screen.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 18
people are being far to self centred about this issue.

for example, lots of people drink at an early age, but hardly anyone goes on to become a full time alcoholic. however, that does not mean alcohol problems do not exist.

the same applies to smoking, drugs, fast food and yes, hardcore porn.

most people will not be affected but its idiotic to suggest that introducing children to extreme material to like hardcore porn is not going to have some sort of negative effect.
It's not porn that should be banned - it's the daily mail. Getting people all riled up and misinformed with a host of vague, yet inflammatory statements.
It's got to be stopped before it gets out of hand.

Quick Reply