Children’s access to online porn fuels sexual harassment, says commissioner

Rachel de Souza warns use of websites partly to blame for normalising abuse in schools in England

Curbs on children's access to online pornography need to be brought in urgently to stop the spread of an activity that is partly to blame for normalising sexual harassment in schools, according to the new children's commissioner for England.

Dame Rachel de Souza is urging governments and tech companies to introduce age verification checks. She warned that access to hardcore pornography was shaping children's expectations of relationships and was partly to blame for thousands of testimonies of sexual harassment by schoolchildren published on the Everyone's Invited website over the last few months.