Grievance Debate

SEXUALISATION OF CHILDREN IN MEDIA

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (15:22): I would like to discuss the sexualisation of children in the Australian print and electronic media. Many members know that I come to this house after more than 15 years of owning and managing a modelling agency and training school. During this time, I have been entrusted with thousands of children and teenagers to build their self-esteem and give them life skills, including the skills used in the modelling industry, such as deportment and grooming.

Although not the parent of young models represented by my agency, I had a duty of care to ensure that the under-age models represented by my agency were protected and not exploited by our society. This has meant refusing work and sometimes holding back children from work that I believe would be detrimental to their development.

Body image and the sexualisation of children are huge issues and the media has played a big role in the problems we are now facing. Many responsible clients now have an age minimum of 16 or 18 years and even ask for identification. In 2008 the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts held an inquiry into the sexualisation of children in the contemporary media. The committee's findings outlined a number of recommendations to the Rudd Labor Government in relation to the inappropriate sexualisation of our children through our electronic and print media.

Thus far, the Rudd government has failed to act appropriately on such findings. Whilst it is acknowledged that primary responsibility for many purchasing decisions, such as clothing, magazines and DVDs, falls to parents, it is both unreasonable and unjust to place all responsibility on parents to control access to the media. I believe there is a role for government to play in supporting and assisting parents and caregivers in managing young people's access to the media.

Extensive worldwide research indicates that tweens—by definition children generally aged nine to 13 years of age—are a vulnerable and impressionable group in our society. They are also a massive advertising and marketing group. Tweens often receive a level of independence from their parents to choose their own television viewing during children's television viewing periods, such as Saturday mornings. Many purchase with their own pocket money magazines such as Total Girl, Girlfriend or Dolly.

Popular viewing during dedicated children's television viewing times includes Saturday morning video clips. Video clips often portray females as being subservient to males and/or sexualized in the clothing they wear, including scantily clad lingerie.

The actions performed send mixed and harmful messages to the potential child audience. Children are exposed to clip after clip of scantily clad women such as the Pussycat Dolls, Britney Spears and now even Disney's poster girl Miley Cyrus in her new song I Can't Be Tamed which pictures her in a cage. What kind of messages are we sending our young?

I challenge the members of this house to watch an hour of video clips on a Saturday morning and report to this house if they are not shocked and disturbed by the overt sexuality and the portrayal of women in particular in a degrading light. Evidence suggests that the continual projection and exposure to children of highly sexualised images has a detrimental effect on the child's psychological and physical wellbeing. Research indicates that even 10 minutes of exposure to video clips affects a child's self-esteem.

Research also shows that girls who have greater exposure to magazines are less satisfied with their appearance, while other studies tell us that one in five 12 year old girls have vomited or dieted to control their weight. Magazines such as Girlfriend regularly include sealed sections which contain highly sexualised content in the guise of providing information to readers. Such sealed sections often include question-and-answer formats on issues including sexual issues. While this may be considered appropriate information for girls over 16, a reader's survey indicates that approximately 20 per cent of the readers are girls aged 11 and 12. Such magazines are not required to meet any classification requirements and, as a rule, are not observed by the classification board until a complaint is made.

South Australia is in a unique position to make a decision in relation to publications, films and computer games. Children are not mini adults; they should not be dressed or treated as if they are. The physical development of children is shooting ahead of both emotional and cognitive development. Girls are physically developing and menstruating at an average age of 11 years as opposed to an average age of 15 not that long ago. Kids are underdone and not ready for the bombardment of sexually explicit images. I call on this government to support a bipartisan approach to acknowledge that governments, whether state or federal, have a moral responsibility to assist parents and children to assess readily and critically the content of print and electronic media.

Time expired.