CathNews New Zealand

UK Prime Minister David Cameron is backing a range of plans to shield British children from the spread of selling inappropriate clothes to pre-teen children, sexualised imagery in magazines, advertising and music videos.

Recommendations in the Bailey Review, “Let Children be Children” include:

• The Advertising Standards Authority to discourage placement of billboards with sexualised imagery near schools and nurseries or other areas where children are likely to view it.
• A clampdown on sexualised and violent images shown before TV’s 9pm watershed and curbs and cinema-style age rating for music videos.
• A single website to be created, to act as “an interface between parents and the variety of regulators across the media, communications and retail industries”.
• Making it easier for parents to block age restricted material on the internet.
• Lads magazines to be moved to the top shelf in shops or sold in covers.

“I particularly welcome those recommendations to make public space more family-friendly by reducing the amount of on-street advertising containing sexualized imagery in locations where children are likely to see it [and to] ensure children are protected when they watch television, are on the internet or use their mobile phones by making it easier for parents to block adult and age-restricted material across all media,” Cameron said in a letter to Reg Bailey, the report’s author.

Cameron said the Bailey Review, represented “a giant step forward for protecting childhood and making Britain more family-friendly”.

Miranda Suit, the co-founder of the British charity, Safermedia, said she is grateful there has been an official review.

“Certainly, the biggest complaint we’ve had…is from parents who say that they are trying very hard to protect their children, and sometimes they succeed within their home to create a very family-friendly environment, but as soon as the child is outside, or as soon as the child is on the internet unsupervised, there is a terrible world of very explicit sexual material out there.”

Sources

• Vatican Radio
• The Guardian

Additional reading

• Media industry relaxed on Bailey Report on sexualisation of children
• Letting children be children
• Reg Bailey talks about his review
• Better put your clothes on Katy Perry, the sex czar's watching: Minister unveils plans to stop sexualisation of children
• Prime-time smut, vile obscenities on Radio 4 and a smug elite who sneer at the silent majority

News category: World.