“The proportion of young children ‘sexting’ is shocking.”

A survey has found that there is an increase in the number of children in UK taking pornographic images of themselves and swapping them with friends via text messages or the internet. Of the children surveyed , 40% of 11 to 14-year-olds admitted to having used their mobile phones or computer to send pictures of themselves or receive naked or topless images of friends.

More than half of youngsters, who were “sexting” did so knowing the pictures would be passed on to a number of recipients. And four in 10 of the 11,000 children surveyed thought it was “appropriate” to circulate pictures of topless girls in their school.

The shocking trend has been blamed on the volume of internet pornography seen by boys who, as a result, expect girlfriends to be promiscuous and flaunt their bodies. Internet safety expert Ken Corish revealed the findings of his survey at a forum on behaviour and bullying.

“The proportion of young children ‘sexting’ is shocking. Online porn is now far too accessible,” the Daily Mail quoted him as saying. “This raises the expectations of young males about what happens in a relationship. But it goes further because this survey shows we are now seeing a shift from youngsters accessing online content to creating it themselves.

“The root cause is not just online pornography. It is everywhere in society from the raunchy pop music videos to TV star Gok Wan persuading woman to get their clothes off on his show,” he stated. Sexting, if it involves pictures of children, is a criminal offence under the Child Trafficking And Pornography Act. “They see the likes of Rihanna or Cheryl Cole parading in raunchy poses and they think they look fantastic,” Siobhan Freegard, of parenting website Netmums, added.

Via Times of India