Kim Kardashian Slammed for Putting Children at Risk from Online Predators with Sexual Selfies
Kim Kardashian is a bad role model for impressionable young children, experts have warned.
The reality star, who is famed for posting sexy selfies on social media, is potentially putting children at risk of abuse as they imitate her explicit images, making them vulnerable to online predators, according to experts at an NSPCC debate yesterday. (14 November)
Kardashian has shared provocative images of her body with her 25 million Twitter followers on a daily basis and published a book of selfies. She has frequently been photographed in the nude and most recently pledged to "break the internet" with her controversial Paper cover shot, in which she was seen baring her famous posterior.
It's those kinds of things, role models out there saying this is the way to live your lives. But unfortunately, [predatory] men want that to happen, want them to believe that's the way to be, that men can interfere with them and damage them in some way.
Nazir Afzal, the chief prosecutor for the North West of England, who played a pivotal role in bringing the Rochdale grooming gang to justice in 2012 for abusing up to 47 girls, said Kardashian was tempting young girls into sexualising themselves, and making them easy targets for predators.
"The sexualisation of children does not help," he said. "The reality is that younger and younger children these days are now exposed to the kinds of things, I saw Kim Kardashian a couple of days ago [the magazine images].
"It's those kinds of things, role models out there saying this is the way to live your lives. But unfortunately, [predatory] men want that to happen, want them to believe that's the way to be, that men can interfere with them and damage them in some way."
His comments were echoed by Government adviser Reg Bailey, chief executive of the Mothers' Union who said the trend for sexting and exchanging sexual imagery among teenagers had become normalised, adding that many "indecent child images are actually self-generated."
"'The idea of what was regarded as pornography, and what you see being very much available now, is very, very different. And it does worry me too, about sexting and sexualised imagery in text messaging, roughly a third of the images that [police] are picking up in terms of indecent child images are actually self-generated, and that's really worrying."
Kim Kardashian, who came to fame after her sex tape was leaked and has posed naked for Playboy, has been the focus of public derision for her provocative selfies.
The online community came together to mock the star with a slew of hilarious memes using the hashtag #breaktheinternet.
The condemnation of the 32-year-old comes on the back of comments by US talk show host Wendy Williams who claimed that Kim Kardashian is grooming her 18-month-old daughter to walk in her hyper-sexualised footsteps.
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