Teenage girls want school uniforms banned in porn

"We're not 'sexy schoolgirls'. We're not objects. We're students, and more importantly, children."

A group of teenage girls from Oxfordshire are calling on the government to ban the use of school uniform in pornography.

The pupils, from The Cooper School in Bicester, have launched a petition arguing that adult content featuring school uniform is 'a clear example of material that sexualises children and young people'.

In April this year, the government agreed new legislation making it a criminal offence to possess or share pornographic content featuring adults pretending to be under 16, as part of the Crime and Policing Act 2026, but it has yet to come into force.

"I think the idea of a school uniform is meant to be beautiful, because it's meant to symbolise a community," says 15-year-old Aylin "but I think it's been tarnished… and warped by sexualisation."

She is part of the school's Little Feminist Book Club, whose members decided to launch the campaign, arguing that school uniform is used in pornography to 'evoke childhood and school-age identities'.

Willow, 14, doesn't wear her uniform in public if she can avoid it: "I go home and change, because I feel vulnerable."

15-year-old Mae agrees, saying she is not comfortable walking down the street in her uniform out of 'fear'.

Rose, 15, says the issue goes beyond adult content, pointing to "the way the media and society have been portraying school uniform."

Mae recalls watching a TV drama aged 12 and seeing a woman in her thirties wearing a 'sexy catholic school girl outfit' to impress a man.

"It alluded to sex," she said "and I thought to myself, tomorrow I'm going to be wearing a uniform just like that and thinking this is something that makes people sexy, but I'm a child."

A 2018 survey of 1,004 girls in the UK found that 35% of 14-21 year-olds said they had experienced unwanted sexual attention while wearing school uniform in public, according to children's charity Plan International UK.

Since launching the petition, Mae says they have heard from 'hundreds upon hundreds' of women sharing their own experiences, with many saying they had 'never been more sexualised' than when they were wearing school uniform as children.

The petition has so far received over 26,000 signatures and the pupils have also written to the prime minister, Andy Burnham, demanding change.

"If we can get this banned, over time, all of these small changes will add up to a world where it's less normalised to sexualise children and we'll be safer," says Aylin.

Clare McGlynn, professor of law at Durham University and author of Exposed: The problem of Extreme Porn, welcomes the campaign.

"It's raising a national conversation about just how problematic it is that we use school uniforms in mainstream pornography," she says, adding that it is very clearly about "eroticising and sexualising young girls."

"The genre of teen pornography is, unfortunately, one of the largest categories in mainstream pornography. But it's not just that. It's also closely associated with more violent and aggressive material."

In April this year, the government agreed new legislation making it a criminal offence to possess or share pornographic content featuring adults pretending to be under 16, as part of the Crime and Policing Act 2026, but it has yet to come into force.

But McGlynn says school uniform does not necessarily fall into this category.

"Where someone says they're pretending to be 17 and in school uniform, that's not covered by the law."

She says that does not reflect the reality of how some of this material is presented: "Let's face it, the reality is that school uniforms are trying to portray a young girl."

Minister for victims, tackling violence against women and girls and international justice, Alex Davies-Jones, said: "Young women and girls should not have to grow up seeing their school uniforms sexualised, and I commend these pupils for speaking out about something they feel so strongly about.

"Pornography must never normalise or glorify the sexual abuse of children. That's why we are changing the law so possessing or sharing pornography which depicts an adult pretending to be a child under 16 will be an imprisonable offence.

"This is part of our wider crackdown on harmful pornography and tackling the attitudes that contribute to violence and abuse against women and girls."