Watford charity Dignify fights young people's access to porn

Mother-of-three Helen Roberts lives in Bushey and is the founder and CEO of Dignify, a charity whose goal is to put an end to children having access to porn.

Before lockdown, Helen and a colleague went and met with a forum called SWISH (South West Herts Secondary Head Teachers).

They talked to them about Dignify and introduced them to a survey they’d created that was written in conjunction with three local secondary schools and was piloted in one of them with the view of exploring five key areas all related to pornography.

Read more: Children as young as five watching porn

These were mental wellbeing, digital relationships and romance, in particular their social media habits, and then perceptions and experience regarding pornography.

Helen said: “There’s a lot of work to be done and we’re working with secondary schools at the moment because that’s where the crisis is at.

"In time we also want to go upstream to junior schools and do some preventative work because 82 per cent of porn is being viewed by children at home so we have to work with families, it can’t just be a school thing.”

Dignify has now surveyed 1,009 young people since the survey was started last September. It has continued into the third lockdown and the survey has not closed yet so schools can still participate.

Helen said: “The statistics and the data that we’re getting are confirming our concerns.

“There are lots of stats out there about this already but the difference about what we’ve got is that it’s Watford’s young people’s voices, so it’s our story which makes a huge difference.”

Dignify is working with schools in Watford to address young people accessing pornography

To paint a picture, on an international scale it is typically reported that the average age for first viewing pornography is about 11, Watford’s children are coming in slightly older than that at the average age of 12 and 13 but some children were reporting that they had first viewed porn aged five.

The survey also revealed that 59 per cent of the children overall said the reason they first looked at it was out of curiosity, and 44 per cent of those children said they have seen it more than once which shows that there is a habit forming, while 16 per cent discovered it by accident.

Helen continued: “If we are going to protect our children and young people from online pornography moving forwards then we need the Government to step in and actually get in place the age of verification rules that they were trying to do but then shelved.

“Porn is proven to be detrimental to children and young people and viewing it can become addictive because it is escalating in its nature.

“Like any other addiction, the dopamine release in the brain requires greater hits in order to give the same level of pleasure so you need a different type of porn, which is increasingly pushing the boundaries leading to the desire for more extreme porn.”

There are physical problems ahead for people with long term porn addiction such as erectile dysfunction for men and the inability to get aroused for women, this comes if one is over stimulated by pornography and dependent on that to get arousal.

Helen asks: “What are we going to do for this generation? Just provide pills?”

When asked if they expected porn to be acted out, 60 per cent of young people aged between 14 to 18 said that they did, and 32 per cent of them said that they had acted out porn.

Helen added: “With kids embarking on intimate relationships, even if one of them has not watched porn ever but the partner has and they have the expectation that whatever they watched in porn will be acted out, what’s to stop the other one from being coerced into behaviours because ‘everyone’s doing it’.”

Other concerning stats revealed that 58 per cent of the young people felt that people using porn are more likely to objectify others, 13 per cent were viewing it daily or several times a day and 6 per cent of the young people admitted that they felt it had become a habit or addiction.

Dignify is working with schools in Watford to address young people accessing pornography

The survey also revealed that 44 per cent of the young people had received a sext, which is the sending of sexually explicit photographs or messages through a mobile phone, from a stranger and 8 per cent of the children said they had sent a sext to a stranger.

Helen said: “If we had 44 per cent of our 15 year-olds being flashed at on the street – the police would be out, we would be doing education sessions with the children, schools and parents, we would all be working together to say this is not what we want our children exposed to.

“This is going on as a cybercrime in a digital sphere and is largely unreported by children because it’s normalized and is fuelling the sexual harassment and sexual objectification that the nation is waking up to.

“Kids are getting their devices from such early ages now and it’s hard because parents are not as digitally savvy as kids so we have to upskill to protect them.

“The porn industry does not care about Watford’s kids, but Watford’s schools, leaders and families do.”

Dignify are developing virtual resources and lessons which could be delivered in person or be given to a teacher to deliver.

A Dignify Community Pledge will also be introduced which will be for everyone coming in and out of Watford to sign up to.

Helen said: “It will be a pledge that has a big yes to healthy relationships, something that people could all agree with, that says yes I absolutely agree with this and because we all have a very confident yes, we will also have a very confident no towards sexual abuse and objectification and porn.

“Sex is brilliant and the curiosity about sex is highly age appropriate here. When puberty hits and the sex hormones hit our teenagers it’s completely natural for them to be inquisitive about sex it’s just that porn must not be allowed to be the teacher.”

She added: “Watford schools are being brilliant, they are engaging really significantly in this conversation.

“There is an African proverb which says ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ and I think the village of Watford is taking that really seriously.

We’re all entering into this from our top leaders all the way through, we’re going to raise our kids to be safe and protected and thrive in healthy relationships.”

After the Easter holidays Dignify will be in touch with all Watford schools.