Schoolgirls too scared to wear skirts demand ban on uniforms in porn

Fifteen-year-old Willow can’t wait to change out of her school uniform at the end of a long day - because it makes her feel “vulnerable.” Designed to make kids feel equal, instead, the wide use of school clothing by actors in porn films, means schoolgirls say they are increasingly attracting unwanted sexual attention from men. Willow says of her uniform: “If I have time to go home and change I will, because I honestly feel vulnerable wearing it in public. It makes me feel like I’m being watched or even followed. I’m a minor and people might assume that I won’t be able to defend myself, or I might make myself a target - even though what I wear doesn’t define me.” Her friend Rose agrees: “I no longer wear skirts. My behaviour has changed due to the sexualisation of school uniforms.” Willow, Rose and a group of fellow students at The Cooper School in Bicester, Oxfordshire, feel so strongly that they’re campaigning for a ban on the use of school uniforms in pornography - saying the depiction of school aged identities in pornographic content is sexualising kids. All members of the mixed comprehensive school's Little Feminist Book Club, they’ve gathered nearly 40,000 signatures on their petition demanding a change in the law. Many of those signing have left concerning comments about their own experiences of harassment, while wearing school uniform. Their campaign has been so effective that The Cooper School pupils - all GCSE students - have been invited to a private meeting with MP Alex Davies-Jones, Minister for Victims, Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls and International Justice, to discuss the issue. And they’ve written directly to Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Aylin, a group member, says: “It’s difficult to balance both exams and this campaign, but we felt we needed to speak up - it is a cause we all feel passionately about and have realised so many others feel the same. “Throughout the years, the issue of children being sexualised has always been apparent, but there wasn’t the kind of environment where children felt safe enough to speak up. Now we have a voice.” A 2025 survey of 16 to 21-year-olds by the Children’s Commissioner found, on average, children are 13 when they first see online pornography, but 27% have seen it by the age of 11. Meanwhile, a 2018 survey by children’s charity Plan International UK of 1,004 girls found that 35% of 14-21 year-olds said they had experienced unwanted sexual attention while wearing school uniform in public. That statistic doesn’t surprise Durham University professor of law, Clare McGlynn, an international expert on the regulation of pornography, sexual violence, online abuse, and gender equality. She says teen porn is one of the most popular subjects searched for online explaining that it’s associated with sexually violent content, adding: “The porn we see on mainstream platforms is algorithmically driven. "They need us to stay engaged - so platforms present us with the most shocking, polarising content. It’s horrible, but teen girls being brutalised seems to be what people click on. It isn’t just about the porn but the street harassment connected to it.” Prof McGlynn, who has 20 years’ experience advising governments, civil society and social media platforms, says there has long been a market for so-called teen porn, but in the past its availability was more contained. She explains: “It’s what used to be called ‘barely legal’ but in the 1980s and ‘90s you would have had to go into a newsagent and reach up to a top shelf to get it or visit a sex shop. “Over the last 15 years, with the rise of porn sites, we now have millions of people watching this stuff. It’s everywhere - you can swap between watching sports content and porn, simply by flicking between apps on a phone. What has changed is the scale and the brutality. It is the eroticisation of gender inequality.” Prof McGlynn also points a finger at some social media platforms where content depicting very young girls, often in school uniform, can be easily found, saying: “Some of this is unlawful, but it’s all there. That’s why this campaign by the pupils at The Cooper School is interesting. I am hugely impressed by it. They are telling us as adults what they are experiencing.” New laws governing pornography introduced next month, as part of the Crime and Policing Act will include making adults roleplaying as children under 16 a criminal offence. But The Cooper School pupils point out that actors over 18 can still play 17-year-olds and be dressed in uniform. Deputy Head of Sixth Form, Kristan O’Flynn, 51, helped set up the Little Feminist Book Club six years ago. She says: “For the students who first started it, it was more than a book club - they wanted a safe space to talk about the issues they felt were affecting them. Speaking out about things we feel are important has always been part of what we do.” Surprised at the huge response to the petition, she adds: “We are aware of current school age students who have felt uncomfortable wearing uniform outside school. But the petition highlighted so many women who are older than these students - some my age, with children of their own, who have commented. "The repeated refrain is, ‘I was never cat-called or harassed as much as I was when I was wearing a school uniform’ I'm shocked that it is so prevalent, so insidious and so pervasive.” Herself a parent, she is proud of her pupils’ resilience and determination, adding: “They have a genuine desire to do good and change the world.” Aylin agrees, saying: “This change may be small, but gradually over time, we will break down the normalisation of the sexualisation of children. Another of our goals is to bring justice. This issue has always been apparent in society and many of the people who have faced the dangers now have children of their own. We want to protect children of the past, the present and the future.” Lauren Agnew, head of policy and public affairs at Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation (CEASE) is adamant that pornography that sexualises school uniforms sexualises children. She adds: “The Crime and Policing Act criminalises pornography in which adults pretend to be under 16. School uniforms can be evidence of that, but it isn't banned outright. The law also leaves a dangerous gap for 16 and 17-year-olds, who are still children and often still in uniform. "Offline, the British Board of Film Classification can refuse to classify pornography in which adults role-play as under-18s. Online, the new offence stops at 16. Pornography presenting adults as 16 and 17-year-olds can, therefore, still fall outside that offence. "The Government's review of online pornography must close this gap. The students at The Cooper School have led the way. Now ministers must act." Minister for Victims, Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls and International Justice, Alex Davies-Jones, says young women and girls should not have to grow up seeing their school uniforms sexualised. She says: “Pornography must never normalise or glorify the sexual abuse of children. That’s why we are changing the law so possessing or sharing pornography which depicts an adult pretending to be a child under 16 will be an imprisonable offence. “This is part of our wider crackdown on harmful pornography and tackling the attitudes that contribute to violence and abuse against women and girls.” Comments on the petition include: - “As a teenager who wears a school uniform every day, I feel unsafe. I feel sexualised, I feel scared, and I shouldn’t have to just because men can’t control themselves.” - “I have daughters and all of them have reported unwanted sexual advances in their school uniforms. All reported it was from men aged 45-65.” - “I’m 66 and it happened to me when I was 14 coming home from rounders practice.” - “I still remember I used to get cat called all the time from ages 9-16, when I got older that stopped.” - “I work in education, and it seems that school-age children are becoming sexualised - even fetishised - at an increasingly young age. . . . it is an abhorrence.” *Link to petition: https://c.org/9hDJqKBtL6