DIGITAL CHILD PROTECTION
IN SCHOOLS

SEND OUR UPDATED CITIZENS' PROPOSAL TO YOUR MUNICIPALITY

We have produced a pre-written citizen's proposal on porn-free schools and other environments for children that you can send to your municipality's info-mail or to the chairman of the municipal council. Click here to download a pdf of the citizen proposal.

Several municipalities have misunderstood the report of the Ombudsman for Children, BO, and therefore refrained from protecting their children from porn. BO clarifies on October 5, 2023 in SvD: "We have never advised against porn filters".

If your municipality has decided not to introduce digital child protection - submit our updated citizen proposal that clears up the misunderstanding! Read the opinion piece below for more information.

MUNICIPALITY SURVEY NO. 3
Here you can see which municipalities respond that they do not protect their children: Porn Free Childhood's municipal survey no. 3, compiled October 2024

  • Porn prevention in Swedish schools is increasing rapidly. The Swedish National Agency for Education introduced porn criticism and consent in new sex education in HT22 after our intensive advocacy work with the government & petition. 83% of Sweden's municipalities have also responded to Porrfri Barndom's new survey, which was compiled in March 2025. The survey shows that only 14.2% of municipalities now respond that they do not use any form of technical solution to limit the risk of children being exposed to pornography in schools - compared to a full 54% who lacked protection when Porrfri Barndom started in 2017.

    The non-profit organization Porrfri Barndom has asked all of Sweden's 290 municipalities how they work with porn prevention in schools. The survey shows that only 14.2% of the 240 municipalities that responded have not used any form of technical solution to limit contact with online pornography in their schools. 

    - We are extremely happy about every parent in our community who has sent our citizen's proposal to their municipality, whereupon municipality after municipality has made a decision to protect their children. We are not least incredibly happy that former Minister of Education Gustav Fridolin listened to our petition and commissioned the Swedish National Agency for Education to update sex education and introduce porn criticism and consent," says Elsa Lantz, co-founder of Porrfri Barndom.

    Father Jonny Andersson in Falkenberg is one of the parents around the country who submitted a citizens' proposal for porn-free working environments for children, which was passed by a large majority in the municipality.

    - For several years, we have received reports of about ten serious incidents per year where mainly boys have harassed girls by playing pornography on the school's digital equipment and via mobile phones already in primary school. 'This is a huge problem. And the number of unreported cases is of course large, especially among the slightly older pupils who have become accustomed to the harassment and do not always tell an adult," says Per Svensson, Chairman of the Municipal Executive Board, Falkenberg Municipality.

    Children today are exposed to pornography at an early age, often at school, with serious health and gender equality implications. The mainstream porn that schoolchildren encounter on the major porn sites today often has elements of coercion, humiliation and violence, including strangulation. This is reflected when young people talk about their own sexual experiences.

    The National Agency for Education's new sex education:

    Read more at the Swedish National Agency for Education here about the new sex education "Sexuality, consent and relationships" where consent and porn criticism are included in the curriculum from HT 2022.

    Contact person:

    Elsa Lantz, Secretary General Porrfri Barndom, elsa@porrfribarndom.se

    About Porrfri Barndom:

    The non-profit association Porrfri Barndom was founded in 2018 and collects over 99,400 signatures through a community of parents around the country. The goal is for all children to grow up in a life free of online pornography and to have the opportunity to define their own sexuality without the influence of the porn industry. This is done through a comprehensive solution consisting of porn-critical conversations, a porn-free policy and limiting the porn industry's contact with children. The work is based on discussions with children and cooperation with experts in healthcare, youth services and schools, some of whom are members of the Porn-Free Childhood advisory board. All parliamentary parties, except the Sweden Democrats, supported Porrfri Barndom's demand for porn-free preschools and schools in Sweden in 2018.

INTERVIEW ON THE FIRST MAPPING EXERCISE OF 2020

OPINION PIECE ON THE OMBUDSMAN FOR CHILDREN

Published in Svenska Dagbladet 2023-09-25

The Ombudsman for Children, BO, claims in a report that digital child protection against porn for younger children does not work based on research on older children who can get around the protection. This is grossly misleading because child protection against pornography is intended for younger children so that they are not exposed involuntarily.

Now several municipalities have refrained from protecting their primary and secondary school children on the erroneous grounds of the BO.

In spring 2020, the government commissioned the Ombudsman for Children to map the harmful effects of pornography among children and propose preventive measures. In the summer of 2021, BO presented its report where they surprisingly advise against protecting younger children from pornography with reference to a single, and also irrelevant, source. The research they refer to is not done on the target group of the mission, which was primary and secondary school children, but on teenagers.

In addition, there is research on primary and secondary school children that shows that the protection works with a "significantly reduced risk of exposure", but this research has curiously been excluded from the report.

We call for more studies on the impact of pornography on children and young people. However, no research is needed to prove that a fence around a kindergarten has a valuable protective and signaling effect. Similarly, research is not needed to establish that digital child protections limit involuntary exposure to pornography for younger children and have an important signaling value.

Nobody thinks that child protection against pornography makes it impossible for a teenager to bypass the protection and access Pornhub or similar sites if they want to. But children, whatever their age, should not be exposed to pornography at school. Nor does anyone believe that child protection against pornography is a universal solution. On the contrary, the widespread harmful effects of pornography, which is becoming increasingly crude and degrading to women, need to be counteracted by a comprehensive solution with many tools in the toolbox. Improved and strengthened education on sexuality, consent and relationships is an important tool. Informing and supporting guardians and professionals working with children on how to support young people in dealing with pornography is another. Just as society works to prevent alcohol, drugs and tobacco against children through a holistic approach.

BO's report has previously also been severely criticized for minimizing the harmful effects of pornography by the international pornography researcher Max Waltman, as the report excluded the period of time when respondent groups were still exposed to pornography in research, which is no longer done, precisely because of the serious harmful effects. We agree with the criticism. BO minimizes the harmful effects of pornography. It is worrying and unacceptable that this report, which deals with one of the major health crises of our time for children, is so substandard. Do over, do right, Ombudsman for Children.

Ann-Sophie Alm (M)
Helena Wilhelmsson (C)
Roland Utbult (KD)
Cecilia Elving (Liberal Women)