ALMOST half of girls aged seven to 10 have experienced online harm in the last year, with the figure increasing sharply for older teenagers, new research suggests. 

Nearly one in five girls in this age group said they had encountered a person pretending to be someone else, while 11 per cent said they had seen obscene pictures. 

Of all the 2,114 girls and young women aged between seven and 21 polled as part of Girlguiding’s annual attitudes survey, 71 per cent said they had experienced online harm, including mean comments. This shot up for those aged between 17 and 21 to 91 per cent. 

One in four of those aged 11 to 21 said they had been sent unwanted sexual images, half had received sexist comments and 28 per cent had been harassed.

Girls are also “unavoidably seeing unrealistic and unattainable images of perfection,” with 45 per cent of 11 to 21-year-olds having encountered images that made them feel insecure about their appearance.

The survey also recorded a “devastating” decline in overall happiness among girls, with 63 per cent saying they feel happy most of the time, down from 81 per cent three years ago. A third said they feel unhappy most of the time. 

Girlguiding said the pandemic has “accelerated and intensified” feelings of sadness, anxiety and worry among girls. 

Chief executive Angela Salt said society must do more to address the worrying decline in happiness among girls. 

The organisation is calling for online harms legislation to address appearance pressures and for better protection for children from social media adverts for weight loss and “appearance-enhancing” products.