A six-month independent review into the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood, which reports today, calls on businesses and media to play their part in ending the drift towards an increasingly sexualised ‘wallpaper’ that surrounds children.

Recommendations that affect the marketing and media industries include, restricting outdoor adverts, banning the employment of children under 16 as brand ambassadors and in peer-to-peer marketing, and improving parents’ awareness of advertising and marketing techniques aimed at children.

Reg Bailey, chief executive of Mothers’ Union, who led the independent review, has listened to parents’ concerns about the barriers they face in bringing up their children. They singled out sexually explicit music videos, outdoor adverts that contain sexualised images, and the amount of sexual content in family programmes on TV.

Reg Bailey’s recommendations are based on parents’ concerns and are intended to support them, make sure their views are taken more seriously by businesses and broadcasters.

Reg Bailey (pictured) says: “Society has become increasingly full of sexualised imagery. This has created a wallpaper to children’s lives. Parents feel there is no escape and no clear space where children can be children. I want to put the power back in parents’ hands so they can better manage the pressures on their children and make it easier for them to bring up their children the way they want.”

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has today published new family-friendly guidelines which Mr Bailey welcomes as a clear example of how industry can respond positively and voluntarily to public feeling. He recommends all retailers should sign up to the guidelines.

Guy Parker, chief executive of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), says: The protection of children from harmful or inappropriate advertising is one of the Advertising Standards Authority’s top priorities and to do this we know we need to reflect the views of parents and young people in our work.　

“We welcome Reg Bailey’s recommendations on advertising and we’re committed to making sure that parents have the confidence to raise their concerns and to know that they’ll be heard.”

The recommendations in the report include:

• Providing parents with one single website to make it easier to complain about any programme, advert, product or service.
• Putting age restrictions on music videos to prevent children buying sexually explicit videos and guide broadcasters over when to show them.
• Covering up sexualised images on the front pages of magazines and newspapers so they are not in easy sight of children.
• Making it easier for parents to block adult and age-restricted material from the internet by giving every customer a choice at the point of purchase over whether they want adult content on their home internet, laptops or smart phones.
• Retailers offering age-appropriate clothes for children – the retail industry should sign up to the British Retail Consortium’s new guidelines which checks and challenges the design, buying, display and marketing of clothes, products and services for children.
• Restricting outdoor adverts containing sexualised imagery where large numbers of children are likely to see them, for example near schools, nurseries and playgrounds.
• Giving greater weight to the views of parents in the regulation of pre-watershed TV, rather than viewers as a whole, about what is suitable for children to watch.
• Banning the employment of children under 16 as brand ambassadors and in peer-to-peer marketing, and improving parents’ awareness of advertising and marketing techniques aimed at children.

Picture: Department for Education