We urge the government to review the current legislation and regulations in relation to the use of school girl uniforms in the sex industry; be they used in pornographic content, sold in sex shops or sold on platforms such as Amazon and EBay under such titles as 'slutty school girl costume' 'sexy school girl costume'.

We also urge these companies to make the decision to remove these items without the government instructing them to do so.

Education is a fundamental human right, a legal obligation in the UK, and a platform through which children can be nurtured, encouraged and empowered. The school uniform is complusory for nearly all schools in the UK, it is a very clear indicator that the wearer is (usually) below the age of consent. Thus when organisations engage in sexualising this outfit, be it through pornography, packaging the outfit for adults as 'sexy' or 'slutty', they are at best ignoring the impact this can have on children, or at worst catering to a proclivity that suggests school girls are sexualy appealing.

Note- in our research the sheer number of interest searches for school girl, school girl uniform that resulted in sexual content was horrifying; where as the same searches elicited very few similar examples for school boys.

This hypersexualisation of the school uniform is affecting our young people on a daily basis.

Plan UK found 'that more than one in three girls in the UK have received unwanted sexual attention, such as being groped, stared at, catcalled and wolf-whistled, while wearing their school uniform in public.' https://plan-uk.org/act-for-girls/street-harassment#:~:text=NOT%20SAFE%20IN%20SCHOOL%20UNIFORM,their%20school%20uniform%20in%20public

In the research and conversations had in preparation for this statement we spoke to high school students who shared that this behaviour has happened to them as young as 11 years old, whilst in school uniform. For many, these experiences have left them scared, highly embarrassed and uncertain of how to act; and even changing the direction the walk or asking for longer coats to cover their uniforms.

Many of the students also reported that this harassment tailored off when they reached sixth form, and no longer wore school uniform, but were ironically over the age of consent.

By allowing/suggesting that school girl uniforms are in some way 'sexy' there seems to be a stark blurring of lines of what is consensual and what isn't, what is pedophilia and what isn't, what is acceptable to think about children and what isn't. We ask, why do we (rightly) punish people for engaging in sexual acts with children, but allow for 'costumes' of their clothes to be sold with these labels and used in sexual content?

The argument that this is 'just' adult 'dress up', 'fantasy', 'fetish' is worth nothing, when you have the voices of our children asking our society to stop, sharing that this is affecting them, both emotionally and physically, it is not 'just in the bedroom' it is permeating into our streets, and impacting on our schools.