(OPINION) With the growing pervasiveness of pornography comes a greater comfortability with nudity at increasingly younger ages — a concerning issue for parents trying to protect their children.
One particularly disturbing trend is the rise in self-generated child sexual abuse material (SG-CSAM), that is, pictures or videos underage children are taking of themselves and sharing with their peers or adults.
In just one year’s time, from 2019 to 2020, the number of children ages 9-12 years old who perceive it as normal to share nude pictures and videos with each other jumped from 13% to 21%.
The study, conducted by Thorn, a nonprofit fighting child exploitation, found an even higher percentage of 9- to 12-year-old boys (26%) see the illegal trend as commonplace.
Elizabeth Fisher Good, an expert advocate against sex trafficking and founder of The Foundation United, told CBN’s Faithwire one of the root causes of this escalating issue is pornography.
“Our children are being taught by the world, and it is not pretty,” said Good, emphasizing how critical it is for Christians to proactively address this issue in their homes and their communities.
She warned, “Hell is systemically coming after our children, systemically dismantling the ability for intimacy, for family. If we don’t do something, in one decade, everything will be different — and we have the power as the church to speak to it.”
One of the most recent high-profile cases involving SG-CSAM quickly turned into a horrific cautionary tale. In February 2021, Serena Fleites — a teenager coerced as a minor by a then-boyfriend into sharing sexually explicit videos that ultimately ended up on Pornhub, the world’s largest pornography site — testified before Canadian lawmakers about the trauma she endured as a result of those videos spreading across the internet like wildfire. (READ MORE)
