Letting Children be Children
Volume and nature of sexualised images — magazine displays
7.
There is a widespread and specific concern, expressed both through our parental Call for Evidence and through the public campaigns in this area, about the display of magazines and tabloid newspapers with sexualised front covers or front pages on shelves where young children can see them.Although the content of such 'lads’ mags' an dnewspapers is not pornography in the accepted sense (that is, not strong enough to be considered as 'top shelf' magazines), they trade on their sexualised content and many parents think retailers should treat them in the same way as they treat pornography.
"Parents can control lots of things in the home. But when you are outside the home it's tricky... magazine covers are really difficult."
"I think inappropriate sexualised images on the front cover of magazines such as ['lads’mags'] are the worst. These are not classed as top shelf magazines and so are on shelving where children are able to view them easily."
Parents, Call for Evidence response8.
There is a voluntary code of practice for newsagents, developed by the National Federation of Retail Newsagents (NFRN), approved by the Professional Publishers Association and endorsed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the Home Office, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and the Association News Retailers through the Association of Convenience Stores. This voluntary code advises retailers to be sensitive to consumer concerns, to display these magazines above children's eye level and away from children's comics (National Federation of Retail Newsagents, 2011).Where space restraints mean that this advice cannot be followed, newsagents are advised to partially cover the titles in question.We note that larger retailers now often put boards with the magazine logo or branding in front of each of the magazine titles on display (known as 'modesty boards') so that the front covers of these magazines are hidden but customers are aware that the magazines are in stock.
9.
The NFRN has made clear to the Review that while the major retailers may find this code of practice relatively easy to follow, smaller businesses may not. Nor do they think it likely there will be full compliance across thousands of sites (the NFRN alone represents 16,000 retailers).This view is supported to an extent by research carried out for the Scottish Parliament earlier this year (Scottish Parliament, 2011). However, businesses which are often in the heart of communities and widely used by families for small purchases need to be conscious of their relationship to all their customers, not just the purchasers of the magazines. The NFRN code of practice makes clear that:
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