Gendered violence is driving a divide between the mental health of young women and men, experts have suggested.
One in five children now has a mental health condition, up from one in nine in 2017, according to a Health and Social Care Committee meeting on Wednesday. But for girls and young women aged 17 to 25, rates of mental health issues are twice as high as those of their male counterparts, figures from the Health Foundation show.
Jo Hutchinson, director for special educational needs and disabilities (Send) at the Education Policy Institute, told the panel: “If you look at the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in young people, clearly girls are on a rocketing trajectory compared with boys and I think, although I can’t prove what the cause of that is, there are some very plausible potential causes of it around gendered violence.”
She added that “things go very wrong” for young girls in particular in early adulthood, and said she can think of no other plausible cause.
PTSD – an anxiety disorder caused by very stressful, frightening or distressing events – affects 12.6 per cent of young women, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
It comes as concerns around misogyny and violence against women are on the rise, with around nine in 10 adults (88 per cent) saying they are concerned about violence against women and girls, according to a recent report published by the Health Equality Foundation.
A National Education Union survey of 10,578 educators also found 56 per cent of teachers believed misogynistic, harmful or extreme online content was influencing pupils in their school.
The government strategy to stop violence against women and girls (VAWG) aims to crack down on deepfake abuse online, including the banning of “nudification” tools, having a specialist rape and sexual offences team in every police force by 2029, as well as teaching students about healthy relationships in schools.
Connie Muttock, head of policy at the Centre for Young Lives, said getting children off their phones and social media and forcing tech companies to create a safer environment for them could help their mental health.
“If we think about young girls and women, sexual violence and harassment, that has skyrocketed in terms of their experiences of it on their phones,” Ms Muttock said in the committee meeting.
“We need to stop waiting for the evidence and we need to take a precautionary approach, get young people off their phones and place the onus on tech companies to prove their safety.”
But it is not just young women, Ms Muttock warned. Childhood has become “isolated” and “more lonely” as many spend less time outdoors, which is having a huge impact on their mental health, she said.
“We are really worried that the impact of that will ripple through generations to come in terms of shaping the minds of young people,” she added.
“Children who spend more time on their phones have worse mental health. We also know that social media has impacts on children’s sleep and poor sleep has terrible impacts on our mental health and wellbeing.”
It comes as the prime minister is expected to announce a ban on under-16s from social media to protect them from harmful content. While no concrete details have been confirmed for the ban, ideas suggested include restricting certain features often described as “addictive”, like infinite scrolling and auto-play videos.
Ms Muttock added society may have a “boredom problem” as social media use increased greatly during the pandemic, and stressed more investment is needed in youth spaces to give young people more enriching things to do in their lives, as well as investment in early intervention of mental health.
However, when young people go to seek advice for their mental health, many are turning to AI for help. Ms Muttock highlighted that young people see AI as stigma-free and accessible.
More than half a million children are on a waiting list for mental health support, and NHS data suggests more than 80,000 children and young people waited longer than 78 weeks for an appointment after being referred.
“Our systems are fundamentally failing them; they are more likely to get help from AI than they are from a medical professional,” Ms Muttock said.
Ms Hutchinson echoed the need for more investment in early intervention, and stressed it is harder to treat mental health the longer a person has been left without help.
“The young person has been left to come up with their own means of coping, which may not have been ideal, but they were all they had available,” she added.
A Home Office spokesperson previously told The Independent: “Violence against women and girls is a national emergency, and this government is deploying the full power of the state to halve it within a decade.
“Our Freedom from Violence and Abuse strategy sets out clear actions to prevent abuse, pursue offenders, and support victims, underpinning our commitment to cut VAWG by 50 per cent.
“We are investing over £1bn in victim support over the next three years, ensuring schools tackle the root causes of violence through teaching healthy relationships and consent, and strengthening policing by embedding public protection as a dedicated specialism.”
