The Church of England has urged the Government to ensure age verification systems are put in place to protect under-18s from online pornography.
Members of the Church’s General Synod voted overwhelmingly in favour of a motion calling for age verification legislation, with 263 in favour, two against and three abstentions.
Age verification checks are included within the Government’s Online Safety Bill. The Government announced on Wednesday that progress on the Bill is to be delayed until Parliament resumes in the autumn.
Porn culture
Speaking in support of the motion, paediatrician and youth worker Dr Julie Maxwell warned that many teenagers now see accessing extreme content on websites as normal.
Dr Maxwell told the Synod: “As a result of the widespread availability of porn to children and young people, they are growing up in a culture where violent, degrading and harmful sexual activity is being normalised”.
Drawing on her experience leading sex education lessons in schools for the Christian charity Lovewise, she said “it’s increasingly evident” that a majority of teenagers are already accessing pornography and “seeing it as normal”.
Responsibility
The experienced youth worker continued: “Children are a gift from God and as adults we are responsible for their development and for protecting them from harm. Proverbs 22 verse 6 says: ‘Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.’
“What children are exposed to as they are developing, develops them as adults, so it’s absolutely vital that under-18s, whose brains are still very much developing, are protected from accessing porn by age verification”.
“Especially”, she continued, “as for many, many young people their first exposure is accidental”. Dr Maxwell concluded her speech by urging the Synod to back the motion. Synod Members warmly applauded her remarks.
Delays
Age verification checks were approved by Parliament under the Digital Economy Act 2017, but plans to implement them were abandoned in October 2019 when the Government claimed they would be covered by future legislation.
Now, under the Government’s Online Safety Bill, pornographic websites could face large fines and risk being blocked if they do not have age verification systems in place to prevent children from accessing content.
Earlier this week, the Government announced that further parliamentary consideration of the Bill would be delayed until after the summer recess.
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