‘Social media is a gateway to porn for children’
Half of young South African children are regularly watching pornography, according to a Unisa study.
Picture: Pixabay via pexels
Clement Manyathela speaks with Mark Russell, Director of Operations at TechBear Online.
Listen below.
An alarming number of South African children regularly watch pornography, according to a 2022 Unisa study.
Roughly half watch porn regularly and 10% watch it every day.
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The study found that 35% of these children watched child pornography and 30% watched violent pornography.
Early exposure to pornography has negative impacts on a child’s development.
This includes negative attitudes towards women, acceptance of sexual harassment, and sexual aggression.
They are more likely to engage in sexual activity at a young age, have skewed attitudes toward gender roles, and become addicted to porn.
According to Russell, many children find pornography through links on social media.
“Social media is a gateway to pornographic websites.”
- Mark Russell, TechBear Online
“Whatever an adult can access through any device, children have access too if the device is not protected.”
- Mark Russell, TechBear Online
Seeing sexual content before they are emotionally mature can traumatise children.
They can become overly sexual or avoid all sexual behaviour as a result.
Russell says that children often normalise violent sexual behaviour that they see in porn, and that will become the ‘template’ for the sex they have as they get older.
Young teenagers and children are also creating sexual content of themselves and sharing it, which is considered the distribution of child pornography.
“Anyone sexting under the age of 18 is guilty of distribution and production of child porn. That has a permanent sexual offender’s record.”
- Mark Russell, TechBear Online
The cyber laws in South Africa are so strict that even posing as a minor in a sexualised scenario is considered child pornography.
“Even if they are a 20-year-old and they are wearing a school uniform in a sexualised way, and they share that... that can be considered child pornography.”
- Mark Russell, TechBear Online
Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the interview.