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Letting Children be Children

The origins of this Review lie in the commitments made to deal with the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood by both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties in their 2010 Election Manifestos, which became a commitment of the Coalition Agreement:

"…strong and stable families of all kinds are the bedrock of a strong and stable society. That is why we need to make our society more family-friendly, and to take action to protect children from excessive commercialisation and premature sexualisation... We will crack down on irresponsible advertising and marketing, especially to children. We will also take steps to tackle the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood."HM Government, 2010

Commercialisation and sexualisation are issues where, to date, the media have often been leading the debate. Academics, including through the recent government reviews, have collected the evidence, investigated the complex issues and presented the range of views in a considered way. However, as the assessment led by Professor David Buckingham 6