A recent survey shows that about 68 % of undergraduate boys watch pornography 7 hours a week, while 28 % of undergraduate girls watch 3 hours a week in the City.
The study was conducted by ‘Rescue,’ a non-governmental organisation in Mangaluru City. Rescue CEO Abhishek Clifford – who is a statistics and ethics lecturer from London – spoke to reporters and said that the survey was carried out in 25 colleges in Mangaluru City, involving 470 students aged between 16 years and 21 years.
Stating that 38 % of boys watch violent porn, including an average of 11 videos of rape a week, Clifford said that 1,900 students start watching videos of rape during their PUC / high school and by the time they complete graduation, they would have watched 2,900 videos of rapes.
Quoting his survey results, Clifford also said that about 250 girls from Mangaluru are gang raped every night. He added that the incidents need not necessarily happen within Mangaluru City limits, but to girls who are trafficked from Mangaluru.
When asked, he said that he arrived at the figure based on the calculations made using interpolation of four recent national surveys on human trafficking of minors for sexual exploitation. The four agencies include National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Clifford added.
Block sites
Referring to the ban on advertising of cigarettes / smoking on television, he sought to know why advertising of videos of rape and child molestation is not banned on the internet. Stressing the need to include cyber ethics in the syllabus, he said that there is a need to warn college students about the dangers of watching porn.
Citing an example, Clifford said that prior to conducting cyber ethics programmes, 18 % of girls had said porn was harmless and pre-marital sex with abortion was okay. “After our programmes, only 5 % still thought the same, which showed a 72-% reduction of promiscuous attitude through just one programme,” said Clifford.
Noting that there are several free softwares available on the net to block porn sites (for example, K9 free software), he appealed that the authorities concerned should send letters to all high school students’ parents explaining how to use such applications on their children’s digital devices.
PIL in Oct 2017
“Rescue has already carried out survey in four states in South India, including the Bengaluru, Mysuru, Chamarajanagar, Mandya, Dharwad, Bidar, Gadag and Mangaluru districts of Karnataka and will be conducting the same in some select north Indian states,” he said.
Clifford added that Rescue is planning to file a PIL in New Delhi in October 2017, after the all-India survey is completed, to seek a ban on all teen and violent pornography videos.
Published 24 March 2016, 21:32 IST