With girls admitting to dressing and acting in a sexualised way to ‘build their brand’ and a mobile stock of porn serving as a status symbol for boys, parents and teachers fear that innocence is under attack

The figures make chilling reading for parents and teachers alike. More than a quarter of 13 to 15-year-olds in the UK have received sexually explicit text messages, while one in 10 children aged 10-12 and a quarter of 13 to 15-year-olds say they have seen sexually explicit images on the internet, according to a survey for the charities Family Lives and Drinkaware, which was published last month.

Shocking as these figures may seem, they nevertheless confirm a development that has concerned educationists and parents for some time: the accelerating sexualisation of young children in society.

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