The BBC: still using the term ‘child porn’

December 17, 2015, Admin, EVB Analysis,

Here we have the BBC, once again, using the term 'child porn' when they mean 'still or video images of children being sexually abused, raped, and tortured.

Peter Allott, who is the deputy head of St Benedict's Catholic school in Ealing, has been charged with "possessing, showing and making category A indecent images of children". The term 'child porn' is extremely problematic conflating the sexual violence experienced by children with legal forms of pornography available. We see the impact of this minimising term every single time someone, like John Grisham, claims that looking at images of children being sexually abused isn't really a 'big deal'. We need to be clear that looking at these images causes actual harm to children, just as it does when their bodies are abused and tortured in the production of these images.

The BBC also felt obligated to use the phrase 'historical sex abuse' to refer the 2010 inquiry led by Lord Carlisle into 21 cases of child sexual abuse at the school. Their constant conflation of sex with child sexual abuse is deeply troubling and demonstrates an unwillingness to engage with research into child abuse and rape culture.

 

'child porn', BBC, child rape, child sexual abuse, male violence

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