Women's groups are today launching a national educational campaign to highlight dangers they believe are inherent in pornography and the sex industry.

Women's groups are today launching a national educational campaign to highlight dangers they believe are inherent in pornography and the sex industry.

At a Scottish Government-funded conference in Glasgow, Scottish Women's Support will be launching educational packs about the harm done by the increased availability of extreme pornography on the internet.

The conference is aimed at tackling demand for the sex industry and pornography by raising awareness of the sexual exploitation of the women involved.

Scottish Women's Support believes the increasingly extreme nature of many pornography websites and computer games is affecting what young people see as acceptable behaviour.

Jan McLeod, of Women's Support, said: "What is severely lacking is an open and public discussion about the content of pornography."

Research conducted by the group found that 88% of men who buy sex from prostitutes would be deterred if they were placed on the sex offenders' register as punishment.

Elaine Smith MSP, the gender reporter to the equal opportunities committee and a speaker at the conference, believes the Scottish Parliament needs to get involved.

"It is about saying to men: think about the abuse these women may have suffered," she said. Professor Gail Dines, of Wheelock College in Boston, is speaking at the conference and has put together the educational pack.

She said: "No-one could have anticipated what the internet was going to do to the industry. It has made violent and extreme pornography mainstream."