Archbishop wants laws on advertising aimed at children tightened: CEN 10.30.09 p 6. November 6, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper, Youth/Children.trackback
| First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Anglican Archbishop of Adelaide has called upon the Australian government to institute a code of practice for advertising directed towards children, arguing that the reliance upon sex to sell products to children was a form of “corporate paedophilia.” Speaking to the opening session of the Diocese of Adelaide’s annual synod on Oct 23, Archbishop Jeffrey Driver denounced marketing that presented children in sexually provocative ways. |
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“Children have a right to their childhood, but it is being taken from them through the hyper-sexualised environment in which they now grow up,” he said, adding that “at an increasingly early age,” children were being “caught up” in a culture of sex, violence and drugs.
Girl’s clothing often was a “highly sexualised, mini versions of adult fashion,” while some child’s magazines advised five- and six-year-olds “how to look hot and catch a boy,” the archbishop said.
“There are strong suggestions that this premature sexualisation of children could play a role in grooming children for paedophiles, preparing children for sexual interaction with older teenagers or adults,” Archbishop Driver said. The archbishop’s concerns about the debasement of children have also been a matter of concern for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. In 2007 Dr Williams endorsed the Children’s Society report entitled Commercialisation of Childhood that found that children were being “engulfed” by sexually suggestive images about how they should look and feel, and what items they should own.
Dr Williams said there was “an increasing political and social consensus that something needs to be done to safeguard children from the worst excesses of direct marketing and the pressures of commercialisation.”
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