Shops Sell Bras For Girls Aged Three

Child charity fury has erupted over shops in Ireland’s republic selling bras for girls as young as three-years- old.

Despite criticism about the 'sexualisation' of children, retailers such as Dunnes and Penneys are selling bra sets that are deemed unacceptable by children's charity, Barnardos.

The Irish Independent found that Dunnes Stores is selling bra-and-knicker sets for three-to-four year olds and for five-to six year olds.

Meanwhile Penneys has padded bras emblazoned with the logo "Superstar" targeted at girls who are 140cm tall or aged around nine.

Last night the Barnardos director of advocacy Norah Gibbons said: "The availability of these items of clothing for children as young as three and four is adding to the early sexualisation of children."

"It is undesirable to encourage young girls to dress as adults it is denying them the right just to be children, and it could give solace to those who seek out children inappropriately," she said.

Barnardos has already put a lot of time and effort into trying to end the inappropriate sexualisation of children.

In 2007, Barnardos carried out a childhood poll where they talked to parents about issues. Nine out of ten parents were concerned about how changes in society were contributing to over-sexualisation and also about inappropriate clothes being available to children.

Meanwhile in January of this year Conservative leader David Cameron called for an end to the inappropriate sexualisation of children, highlighting the fact that children are over-exposed to sexual imagery.

A government-commissioned report by psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos on the sexualisation of young people was concerned about 'lads mags,' which they said should carry an age warning and also music videos that had a lot of sexual posing.

The report said this 'drip-drip' exposure was distorting young people’s perceptions of themselves, encouraging boys to become fixated on being macho and dominant, while girls, in turn, presented themselves as sexually available and permissive.

Childcare worker Suanne O'Connor said she had been shocked to see bras for small girls on sale in Penneys in Limerick recently.

"I have worked with young people in crisis and believe me the last thing that's needed is to encourage girls to dress up like adults younger and younger. Can we just bring back the teddy bears please," she said.

"The fact they're calling them crop tops is just a total copout, anyone looking at these would call them bras," she said.

A Penneys spokesperson said their bras were labelled by chest size with no reference to age and were lined for comfort and modesty and were not designed to provide enhancement.

They said their bras for five- to six-year-olds were crop tops that were classified as vests.

The British Retail Consortium recently introduced a code of good practice for selling children's clothes, signed up to by many major retailers such as Marks & Spencer, Debenhams and Tesco, but not subscribed to by Penneys.

(LB/CD)