LETTER:

Dear Prime Minister,
Mainstream websites have repeatedly been found hosting and monetising pornography
involving child abuse, sexual violence and trafficking victims, and the absence of basic
safeguards is enabling this.

Platforms are under no legal duty to verify either the age or permission of individuals featured in
pornography before they publish and monitise it. As a result, they have no certainty that those
depicted are over 18 or agreed to the material being published.
Parliament is now considering an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that would require
pornography websites to:

• • verify that everyone featured is an adult.

• • verify that they gave permission for that content to be published on that platform.

• • remove content promptly if consent is withdrawn.

These are basic safeguards. Without them, children remain unprotected on both sides of the
camera:

• • some may be featured in pornographic material itself, with abuse, coercion or trafficking
    monetised and made permanently accessible.

• • others may view material depicting the sexual exploitation of children, or clear instances of
    coercion and abuse, normalising exploitation and increasing their vulnerability.

Of course, the harms are not restricted to children. Adults coerced into the industry, harmed
during the production of pornography, or whose circumstances later change currently have no
right to withdraw their consent to their ongoing publication.

It means some survivors live with the constant fear of recognition by employers, partners or
children. One survivor of trafficking describes the struggle to remove her abuse from
mainstream sites as “climbing a wall, but you never reach the top.”

In no other context would society accept the permanent commercial circulation of someone’s
sexual images against their will. Platforms that profit from pornographic material should be
required to undertake basic due diligence.

The proposed measures recognise that enforcing existing laws after serious harm has occurred
is too late. They establish a preventative safeguard, a basic minimum standard of protection
designed to stop harm before it happens.

This amendment has broad cross-party support and was a central recommendation of the
independent, government-commissioned review led by Baroness Bertin, which examined the
harms of online pornography and proposed stronger safeguards and regulatory oversight.
We urge you to support this amendment and ensure that platforms which profit from
pornographic content are required to meet clear, enforceable standards on age and consent,
bringing more accountability to an industry that has operated for too long without it.

Yours faithfully,

Alesha De-Feitas, Head of Policy and Public Affairs, Barnardo’s

Nina Humphries, Director, UK Feminista

Rachel Crichton, CARE

Hannah Roberts, Dignify (One YMCA)

Frances Frost, Lucy Faithful Foundation

The TARA Service

Bobbie Dennis, Senior Policy and Public Affairs Officer, IWF 

Routes Out

Dr Sasha Rakoff, Not Buying It!

Dr Laura Jones and Clare Jones, You My Sister

Diane Martin CBE, Chair, A Model For Scotland

Angie Tolmie, Chair, Scottish Women’s Convention

Professor Lisa Sugiura, University of Portsmouth

Laura Bloomer, Backed Technologies

Sarah Green, CEO, Women at The Well

ECPAT UK (Every Child Protected Against Trafficking)

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington – UK Parliament  

Marike Vanharskamp, Head of Policy and Public Affairs, Catch 22 

Martin Houghton, The Naked Truth Project