Ore Oduba voices concern over pornography effects on children

Ore Oduba has warned that pornography “will educate our children” without intervention.

Last year, the former Strictly Come Dancing winner, 40, revealed that he had a 30-year battle with porn addiction that began when he was aged just nine.

He is now working with the Naked Truth Project, which educates people on the harms of pornography and offers recovery and support programmes.

Speaking on Good Morning Britain on Monday, Oduba called pornography’s effect on young people a “public health crisis”.

Ore Oduba has warned ‘pornography will educate our children for us’ without intervention (Ian West/PA)

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After co-host Susanna Reid suggested parents do not want to speak to their children about porn out of fear of telling them it was available, he said the conversation was a necessary one.

“So many parents will have those thoughts – the idea we are protecting children’s interests by not talking about it. But if we don’t intervene, pornography will educate our children for us,” he said.

“There is so much more access, and it is almost a language between children now, but we have to give them the opportunity to make a better choice by informing them that pornography does have a harm attached to them – either for them, or for their relationships as they grow up and develop.”

He then urged parents: “Have the conversation now, because if they don’t, pornography will do it for us. And that’s not the sort of world we want for our young people.”

Referencing a report from the Children’s Commissioner, the presenter said that 80% of children had accessed pornography on social media, with 60% of those being by accident.

He said: “What is the cost, and are we happy the effect pornography happening on our world, on our mental health, our sexual health today?

“Are we happy that 80% of young people think pornographic sex is a realistic version of what sex and relationships look like? Are we happy that this kind of sexual assault that’s happening within children’s and young people’s relationships affected and correlated to what they see in pornography? Are we happy with that, and if we aren’t, what are we going to do to intervene?

“And so that’s why this public health crisis strategy is so important for us to give the information. What kind of strategic approach are we going to have?”

The former Strictly winner revealed his decades-long addiction with porn last year (Yui Mok/PA)

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Oduba appeared on GMB alongside The Naked Truth Project founder and chief executive Ian Henderson, who said that even a decade after founding his charity, speaking about pornography and its effects was still a “taboo subject”.

After opening up to his family about his addiction just a year ago, Oduba said that he “wished” he had spoken to them earlier.

“As a child you don’t understand you’re going through something. And by the way, let’s remember: 30 years ago, we didn’t have smartphones, we didn’t have broadband, we didn’t have the access that we have now.”

He added that pornography was “flooding children’s timelines” which could “have an effect on how people are interacting with themselves and relationships”.

Oduba said the “whole landscape” had changed since he first became addicted to pornography.

He said the material he viewed as a child became a “sexual script” and “socio-sexual mapping at a really early age”.

Speaking about the effects on children today, he added: “There really is a mental health cost, a sexual health cost on young people and all of us in the community.”

Oduba revealed his decades-long pornography addiction on the We Need To Talk podcast with Paul C Brunson in November.

He said at the time: “A year-and-a-half ago, I was able to escape an addiction that had dogged me for nearly 30 years.

“Nine, that is when my addiction started, when I was introduced to pornography, and I think only after everything that has happened, understanding how much of a thread that had been throughout my life, was I finally able to escape it.

“I know it had been dogging me, it had been destroying my life from the inside out, but it was the thing from a very early age that I was running to as a response to a trauma.”

Oduba, who presented CBBC’s Newsround from 2008 until 2013 and won Strictly Come Dancing with Joanne Clifton in 2016.