Schools cannot tackle child sexual abuse alone as online harm reshapes prevention

Experts say schools remain vital for teaching children about consent and healthy relationships, but preventing abuse requires action from families, technology firms, policymakers and health professionals.

Schools are being asked to do more than they can manage alone in the fight against child sexual abuse, but they remain one of the few places where prevention can start early and reach almost every child. In a response to The Guardian’s editorial, paediatrician and abuse specialist Donna Hill argued that harmful sexual behaviour between children is part of a wider pattern shaped by family life, peers, digital platforms and wider social attitudes, not only by what happens in classrooms. Hill said her own organisation has found that around 30% of the children it supports are harmed by other children, underlining how often abuse among peers is part of the picture rather than an exception. The point is not that schools are irrelevant, but that they are only one part of a much larger safeguarding system.

That broader context matters because the evidence on children’s exposure to sexualised material online has become increasingly stark. The Children’s Commissioner for England said in a report published in May 2023 that half of the child-on-child sexual abuse cases it examined included references to acts of violence commonly seen in pornography, such as choking, strangling or slapping. The commissioner also said children can encounter such material very young, with one January 2023 report finding that one in 10 children had seen pornography by the age of nine and that violent pornography was widespread by the time many reached late adolescence. Separately, groups including the PSHE Association have argued that these findings strengthen the case for stronger online protections and better education, particularly as social media and messaging platforms are now major routes of exposure.

Hill said the response to abusive behaviour between children should be more nuanced than a simple criminal justice lens, because court outcomes alone do not necessarily help young people understand harm, consent or another person’s perspective. That concern is echoed by specialists who argue that prevention must begin long before a crisis point. Donna Hill, head of Coram SCARF, said children need to learn about boundaries, bodily autonomy, empathy and respectful relationships in primary school, then build on that foundation through lessons on consent, coercion, pornography, online harm and sexual harassment as they get older. Her argument, and the wider evidence from the Children’s Commissioner, points to the same conclusion: safeguarding children from sexual harm will require families, schools, technology firms, policymakers and health professionals to work together, with prevention treated as a core part of the answer rather than an afterthought.