Could porn turn your child into a rapist?

Abuja - In a chilling article, the Daily Mail reports that 'a 13-year-old schoolboy raped his 8-year-old sister after watching pornography on an XBox computer console' with his friends.

The boy said after watching porn he 'decided to try it out' on his sister because he was small and 'couldn't remember stuff'.

Fiona Elvines, from the Rape Crisis Charity is quoted as saying children accessing pornography was a 'growing concern'. She added, 'For a long time people have been sitting on the fence and saying we do not have the evidence to say porn is harmful, but now we are starting to have some evidence around young people’s exposure.

How much evidence do you need? When children see porn, they have no context for what it is used for. There is pressure on children to be sexualised, particularly on younger boys, to start having sex.'

In a similar case, reported in The Telegraph, a 12-year-old boy raped his younger sister after watching porn at school. When sentencing the minor Judge Thomas warned that the Internet cannot be used as a 'babysitter'. He also warned parents that the internet is a 'mirror of adulthood in all forms'.

He added: 'It's a sad fact that many boys of his age will have been exposed to adult pornography. But not all boys exposed to it will act as he did. He found pornography online and replicated what he saw.'

The boy admitted having urges he could not control and knew what he was doing was wrong. The court ordered the boy to register as a sex offender for two and a half years.