Shielding kids from porn isn’t child’s play

THE system of education faces several external threats today that it prefers to ignore. There is no easy way to respond to them, and the system’s priorities have changed. One such threat is the smartphone. Children are introduced to it early, mostly by parents. Horrible incidents that remind us about the nature of its threat keep happening without drawing sustained attention.

One such incident occurred in Mohali recently. The place is hardly important, as similar incidents are often reported from various regions and places. Three boys, aged 10-11, were reportedly watching pornography on a smartphone. A seven-year-old boy came by, and they sexually assaulted him. The smaller boy’s mother lodged a complaint with the police. They will investigate the nasty episode from the viewpoint of bringing the juvenile perpetrators of the crime to justice. For schools and teachers, the three older boys should also arouse deep concern. Indeed, society and the country should worry about all four children in equal measure.

Worry, however, is hardly an adequate response. Easy access to pornography in childhood concerns children’s right to be protected. This right reminds us how vast a canvas of children’s life at home and school we must take into account while interpreting the term ‘protections’. For a long time in our modern history, we assumed that paedophilia was a Western problem. Now we know it is not. The vulnerability of little girls is now an acknowledged cultural and educational fact, but the smartphone has changed all previous understanding of children’s vulnerability. The Mohali incident is hardly rare, except in the sense that it highlights a danger we don’t want to think about, perhaps because we can see no solution, whether easy or difficult.

Sociologist Gail Dines is the best-known campaigner against pornography. She spares no words or statistics to remind us that pornography is deeply entrenched in the Internet. Its financial grip is bigger than any single industry dependent on the Net. We don’t need to speculate how major a contribution it makes to the economy of the Internet and the smartphone.

Prof Dines has written and spoken extensively about the decisive impact that exposure to pornography makes on the minds of children, especially if the exposure occurs around the age of 11 or 12, and particularly for boys. Pornography imbues sexuality with brutality. To boys, it teaches that violence is a legitimate part of the sexual act. To girls, it teaches that no matter how aware they become of their dignity, they will remain objects of sexual consumption in the eyes of boys.

These are tough messages for teachers to receive and digest. No school can claim that it has a strategy to protect children from potential exposure to pornography or to combat its influence on their minds. No nation in the world has evinced an interest in developing such a strategy. In our case, the State has demonstrated no anxiety about the potential problems that the smartphone can create in children’s lives — both because of its addictive power and what all it offers access to, including pornography.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, when schools were shut down for a prolonged period, several states in India distributed free smartphones, obviously to ensure equal access to online teaching. Like many other debates suspended during the Covid ethos, the option and length of online education were treated as a timely, benign decision that would bring benefits alone. No studies have been conducted to find out how state-sponsored access to the smartphone influenced a child’s life. Online education became part of school life after the pandemic and the smartphone maintained its edge over all other devices in providing it. Along with the teacher’s messages and homework, the phone brings a vast adult world into homes and children’s hands.

Never before have kids been exposed to a borderless milieu. They are now surrounded by the global market which treats every child as a consumer — of every possible object and experience. No parent or teacher can restrict a child’s access to this global market. The risks inherent in this unprecedented situation can only intensify as children gain greater facility for using the smartphone.

Expecting that the school authorities or the government can establish a measure of control on how market forces reach the child is to live in a fantasy world. A handful of countries have banned smartphones from schools; one or two countries have banned access to social media for children below 16. These firefighting measures underline the threat that the new technological environment poses to children’s lives and minds. In India, the State’s role in meeting this threat has not come under any public debate so far. Gung-ho adoption of all new digital devices in the education system continues to dominate the discourse of educational reform.

Children’s access to pornography is an unacknowledged issue. If you acknowledge it, you will immediately realise how difficult it is to address it — that is, if someone wants to. Several years have passed since it received a mention in the media and courts. The options discussed at the time were the familiar ones. Banning pornographic sites, creating technological barriers for child users of smartphones, compelling access providers to protect children — these were among the options discussed.

None seemed practical or possible, so the only choice left was to create public awareness. This all-purpose remedy has accumulated far too many demand orders since the advent of the Internet. In the context of children, this remedy implies parental education on a vast range of matters concerning children’s life at home. Who might be responsible for providing parents the knowledge they need to cover the risks their children face is a question seldom thrashed out in policy circles.