Sexting: Children, Young People and Child Pornography

Sexting: Children, young people and child pornography

I’m crediting this blog to Dr Thomas Crofts and Dr Laura Harvey and Dr Jessica Ringrose whose talks I went to this evening.

The first one was particularly interesting and about the legislative framework surrounding child pornography. The research that he was talking about was all in Australia but I’m sure has similar legal implications here.

He discussed the concept and definitions surrounding pornography, about possessing or distributing sexual material of a child – child being defined as someone who is 18 or under. However he went onto explain, that although laws have really toughened around child pornography, and there are things such as the UN conventions for the rights of the child (Art 34)  in place to prevent adults distributing this material,  they are not set up to handle the subleties of ‘sexting’ – that is, young people who are sending each other sexual images or films i.e via text. (Sexting is not a word young people use themselves, it seems to have come from the media – they are using terms such as naked selfies and nudies).

And in Australia, young people, are being arrested over possessing this material – although there have been no prosecutions yet. The only thing in place to protect them is if they are below the age of criminal responsibility – but in the UK, that’s as young as 10, so unlikely to form any protection.

This all comes down to the perceptions of this material and whether it’s offensive. The law in Australia explores whether its offensive to the reasonable person- but the reasonable person would be an adult – and young people might perceive it differently.

So there is a question about this balance – we don’t want to sanction young people and turn them into criminals (and in Australia this can go as far as being on the sexual offenders register!) but equally we want to protect our young people, and make sure victims who are being bullied are given a voice.

However there is clearly wide spectrum of sexting – some can be clearly exploitative, but others can be two mutually consenting 16 year olds, taking images of each other and keeping them on their phone alone.

The pros – for criminal sanctions – are long lasting ‘haunting harm’ it can cause young people, the digital footprint, that it might encourage deviant sexual behaviour, might whet the appetite of adults and it challenges idealiased notions of childhood innocence.

The outlined cons were that sexting does not fit the rationale driving severe responses to child pornography. In addition repression might incite more sexting, in line with Foucault, perhaps by criminalising, it would actually normalise sexting, does it deny young people their sexual citizenship and the severe sanctions can have long term consequences eg on jobs.

The researcher supported Diane Abbott’s recent message on Women’s Hour – that the ideal is about support and education about sex and relationships, not about sanctions and censorship.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21127073

The second talk followed on from this and was based on research conducted in two schools in inner city London, talking to teenagers and exploring their social media habits.

They found a lot of talk about the idea of getting ‘ratings’ – ie social currency through the way you dress, the girls you get, potentially violence…and a lot of male teens were putting on facebook images of girls’ cleavage, sometimes with their own names written across it. The less ‘easy’ the girl, the more ratings they get. As well as putting up images of girls, they were also putting up images of their six packs – but there was a lot of pressure on them, and they had to negotiate whether it’s the right image to put up  - that enhances their masculinity and doesn’t make them look gay. However if they put the right images up, it’s valuable to them.

On the flip side, the comments under the girls’ pictures tend to discuss how the girls are ‘skets’ and sluts – and it’s much harder for them to get ratings in this way.

The teens were saying, having porn on your phone is for the kids, the year 7s, whereas they have photos of real girls.

A lot of this information is not that new but it just reinforces the notions of gender inequality and the pressures that each gender have to face – the constant negotiations they are working through. Some of the boys are under pressure that if they don’t’ ask a girl for an image, they might be seen as gay – equally girls feel it’s nice to be asked to give an image – but want to balance being a ‘sket’ and being frigid. It’s important to note the pressure on each gender as the media and policy discourse tends to frame boys as problematic and risky, and often demonises this gender.

Interesting insight into this world – although clearly a small sample.

Cuts affecting practice: Use of SGOs

Happy New Year!

And thanks for the many views of my Xmas post – I had almost 200 which is nice for me!

I’m writing today’s blog on a specific issue as it is something I am coming into contact with in practice for the first time. I have learnt about Special Guardianship Orders (SGOs) in our lectures but it’s only recently in the LAC team that I’ve seen how they might fit in.

However, at the moment, I’ve not seen them used in the way they are intended, in the most child-centred way but often for what feels like financial motivations. I’m very aware that in this climate in particular, one of the main frustrations social workers have is the impact of the cuts on their ability to practice as intended, however for me this is the first time I’ve seen a specific example.

To be clear – I have young people I am working with who have been with foster carers over a year and are thriving. These foster carers are agency carers and are paid more than in house local authority carers. When it comes to looking at placement permanency, we have to go to panel to ‘match’ the young person formally with their foster carer until they leave care. For the young people I am working with, this is likely to be for at least another four years. However, for budgetary reasons, our fostering and adoption team are finding it increasingly difficult to get approval to fund many of these agency placements for long term permanency work, only for short term placements. Thus foster carers are asked if they would consider taking an SGO – basically because it’s more cost effective. I’m not saying that SGOs can’t be beneficial to young people, just that this this is not the motivation.

I’m wondering if this is happening in lots of local authorities. In many ways it is child centred, in that questioning the foster carer as to whether they can be a SG, is in order to prevent the placement being disrupted, and working in the best interests of the child to aid stability. It just seems unfortunate to have to put the foster carers in such difficult positions, where many find that despite not having gone into it for the money, money does play an important role, and they can’t afford to take on the less well paid SGO.

All the social workers want the best for the young people, and we’ll all be fighting to advocate and make our case that the young people should remain where they are until they leave care, so as to avoid disruption and another placement move. It’s just incredibly frustrating to see decisions at the top, affecting practice in this way.