Fight to Remove Pornographic Materials from the Top Shelf

13 Mar 2006

Diane explained: “A local newsagent in my Stoke Newington constituency has been running a campaign to rid his newsagent of offensive materials for 16 years. He has won the support of local women’s groups as well as parents groups and I was more than happy to help.”

The meeting of MPs followed a Commons Motion tabled by Diane Abbott calling for offensive materials to be kept well out of reach and sight of children. She said: “an overhaul of media regulation is long overdue. Pornography should be sold appropriately – on the top shelf – way out of reach and sight of young children. We need to rework our definition of what constitutes a pornographic publication. So-called ‘lads-mags’ and some of the tabloids contain very disturbing and degrading images of women and are readily available on the bottom shelf in full view and reach of young children.”

Diane added: “the desensitisation of children to pornographic images is harmful not only to the children but to women and gender equality issues generally. How can our children grow up to respect women if they are used to seeing them exposed in degrading ways in the most manner of fact way? As a mother and a woman this is very concerning. We need to link this issue not only to the harm it is doing to children but also to the negative impact it has in terms of perpetuating gender inequality.”

Diane continued: “More than 100 MPs are now backing this campaign and have taken various initiatives to support it. Initiatives include penning a 10-minute rule bill and meeting with the big-name porn distributors like WHSmith to ask them to abide by the purely voluntary codes that ensure that top shelf porn is in fact placed on the top shelf.”

Diane concluded: “Some magazines contain literally thousands of ads for hard core porn but are sold on the bottom shelf as if it they were newspapers. They call on men to win ‘tit ops’ for their girlfriends and to calculate their ‘pay for lay’-rate. This encourages contempt for women and will necessarily contribute towards perpetuating institutional sexism or violence against women. I think a statutory instrument requiring newsagents to sell titles containing pornographic materials from the top shelf is the first step towards changing public attitudes and avoid normalising sexual or exploitative images of women.”

 



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