From one worried mother, a passionate call to arms... It's time to stop the fashion industry dressing girls of ten like this

The film star's designer sister poses coquettishly as the paparazzi go crazy. There is scarlet lipstick on her wide smile and thick black liner rings her eyes.

She is dressed provocatively in a perilously short, tight dress, fishnet tights and high-heeled PVC dominatrix boots. So far, so predictable. Except for one thing.
This is Noah Cyrus, sister of Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus, and she's just ten years old.

Dressed provocatively in a perilously short dress, fishnet tights and high-heeled PVC dominatrix boots, this is Noah Cyrus and she's just ten years old
Her frail, flat-chested child's body and babyish face looks grotesque and tragic in her bizarrely sexualised get-up. The pictures are enough to send a shiver down my spine.
Yet for millions of American children, Noah is a style icon. And now, together with child actress Emily Grace Reaves, who is just eight, this skinny little girl is launching a range of clothing for the childrenswear line Ooh La! La! Couture.
The clothes are mainly hooker-style short dresses with can-can skirts in garish pink, leopard print and black, and are described by the company as 'versatile styles that can be worn with sweet ballerina slippers, funky sneakers or paired with lace stockings and boots for more of a rock 'n' roll look'. And yes, they are available from baby sizes.
I found the pictures particularly disturbing because I have a daughter, Cecily, who is five next week. She will be, she solemnly informs me, 'a very big, grown-up girl'.
In just three years, Cecily will be the same age as Emily Grace. Would I be happy to see her at eight years old, wearing skin-tight Lycra mini-dresses and high heels?
Or indeed would I let her totter around in high-heeled sandals, smeared in lipstick, like poor Suri Cruise? Of course not. The mere idea of my little daughter morphing into a freakish, miniature Jordan makes me feel sick.
For millions of American children, Noah is a style icon
But let's not deceive ourselves that this is an 'only in America' phenomenon. Growing numbers of mothers like me are appalled at what is happening to the way our children, and particularly our little girls, are being pushed into ever more adult, ever sexier styles of clothes.
We worry how our growing daughters will learn to regard themselves, and how some adults will look at them. And most of all, we worry about how fast and how much their childhoods are shrinking.
The difference between childhood and adulthood has traditionally been signalled by clothing.

But when ASDA, the UK's largest childrenswear retailer, sells black sequined microshorts and metallic biker jackets for four-year-olds, and Next, its rival, sells strappy, diamante sandals with adult-height heels to fit three-year-olds, should we assume that the minute our girls are out of babygros they are nothing but miniature WAGs, to be judged on their sexual attractiveness?
Even dear old M&S is flogging off-the-shoulder lurex sweaters for reception-age children.
Adams, meanwhile, a children's wear retailer with a presence on many High Streets, has a range called Tainted.

Even the word has clear sexual overtones, and the clothes, such as 'wet look' pvc bomber jackets, despite being aimed at children from babyhood to just 12, are quasi-adult and styled to look hard and aggressive, as are the child models wearing them.
Revoltingly, even the tiniest babies aren't safe from predatory marketing. The internet company Twisted Twee designed a T-shirt for babies less than six months old with nipple tassels printed on the front. Hilarious, no?
I'm not alone in my horror. A few years ago, a report commissioned by the respected Australian Institute coined a new phrase to describe the commercial sexualisation of children: 'corporate paedophilia'.
Lead researcher Emma Rush wrote: 'Images of sexualised children are becoming increasingly common in advertising and marketing material.

'Children who appear aged 12 years and under, particularly girls, are dressed, posed and made up in the same way as sexy adult models.'
Feminist writer Natasha Walter writes despairingly about the hypersexualisation of children in her new book, Living Dolls: The Return Of Sexism.
Last month, Tory leader David Cameron threatened to pass laws outlawing 'premature sexualisation' and 'excessive commercialisation' of youngsters unless firms stopped voluntarily, saying: 'Children today are being sold the idea that the path to happiness lies through excessive consumption.

'We can't go on like this. It's time we gave children back their childhood and got adults to behave like adults.'
And now the influential parenting website Mumsnet has weighed in with its own, upcoming and very timely campaign on the issue, under the banner Let Girls Be Girls.
The site's founder, Justine Roberts, a mother of four, says: 'We reckon that children should not be presented as sexual or encouraged to believe that attracting the opposite sex is something they need to consider.'
Influential parenting website Mumsnet, founded by Justine Roberts, has weighed in with its own campaign under the banner Let Girls Be Girls
She adds: 'The idea behind our campaign is to encourage retailers to sign up to a simple pledge that commits them to selling only products which do not sexualise children.
'Most of us think that children's underwear shouldn't mimic adult lingerie, and that padded bras for pre-teens are not appropriate.

'We think clothing shouldn't feature slogans which are likely to be read as sexy, provocative or flirty, and lots of us feel that little girls' shoes should not have high heels.'
It really isn't much to ask, is it? Of course, some will argue that even this is overkill.

That these clothes are harmless and that to think otherwise is old-fashioned. But there is growing evidence that they are wrong.
Mumsnet's Roberts points out that overtly sexy clothes and toys 'introduce children to the world of adult sexuality, when elsewhere we are rightly encouraging them to resist the pressure to become sexually active at a young age'.
She adds: 'It tells girls that the most important quality they need is " sexiness" and that female sexuality is all about pleasing others, and encourages a culture in which children are viewed as sexually available.'
The Australian Institute coined a new phrase to describe the commercial sexualisation of children: 'corporate paedophilia' This is a point echoed by Tom Narducci, senior consultant at the NSPCC.

'The NSPCC's position on this is that by normalising sexualised clothing, and by normalising sexualised behaviour, it opens up young girls to being exploited,' he says.
'There are documented court cases where the defence of the perpetrator was that the victim was wearing provocative clothing and behaving in a provocative way,' he adds.
'They were blaming the child and using that as a defence. The perpetrator was saying "I couldn't help myself" and using that as some sort of justification for what they were doing.'
Studies also show the harmful effects of the pressure to be sexy on the way young girls think and feel about themselves.

The American Psychological Association has published research linking early sexualisation to eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression in girls.
The association said its research found evidence of sexualisation in every form of media, 'as well as in goods marketed to children'.
The effects on society were catastrophic, it said, and included an increase in sexism, increased rates of sexual violence and sexual harassment, and an increased demand for child pornography.

Would you let your daughter totter around in high-heeled sandals, smeared in lipstick, like poor Suri Cruise?
In 2008, Girlguiding UK, in partnership with the Mental Health Foundation, issued its own report on the sexualisation of young girls.
The organisation surveyed Guides aged between 10 and 14, precisely the sort of girls you might think would be immune to these pressures.

But Chief Guide Liz Burnley warned that too many girls now experienced 'stress, anxiety and unhappiness' as a result of being forced to grow up too quickly.

Girls felt under pressure to wear clothes to make them look older and were vulnerable to bullies if they did not.
It is a depressing picture, and one that particularly worries mothers of girls, like me. I don't believe for one minute that little girls naturally want to look sexual or even adult.

I have one small daughter and a teenage stepdaughter, and when small, their fantasies around clothes are all about being storybook characters.

My daughter likes to dress up as a dog or a fairy, or will appear in the kitchen riding a hobby horse, wearing a homemade cloak and brandishing a plastic sword.
She has never hankered after PVC boots or a 'wet look' jacket. So where is the demand coming from? I am afraid it must be from parents.
Indeed, on the Next website a customer from Brentwood in Essex gives a pair of high-heeled strappy sandals a five-star rating, adding: 'My four-year-old loves them.' But she didn't buy them, did she?
My other fear with inappropriately adult clothes being aimed at girls like my daughter is where they go next.
If we teach our five-year-olds that Start-rite shoes and Peter Pan collars are somehow babyish and shameful, and instead put them in WAG-style fuchsia velour tracksuits with 'sexy' emblazoned on their tiny rears, what on earth can they wear aged nine or ten?
Of course, they head to places like Topshop, where pre-teens can slip into size six strapless minidresses and corset tops surely aimed at 16-year-olds and older.

This is a way of robbing girls of their childhoods, which are already very brief, and clearly some parents just aren't saying no.
Yet if stores are anxious to give parents what they want, they are also terrified of being seen to support the sexualisation of children. If we demand that they change, they will.
And there is hope. After criticising in these pages the company's sometimes suspect winter clothes for children, I was relieved to see that Marks & Spencer's spring ranges are full of pretty cotton frocks and practical striped jersey trousers.
The NSPCC is also talking to retailers about the kinds of goods they are selling, and Tom Narducci believes they are beginning to respond.
'The retail world is beginning to hear some of the messages and realise that if they produce something, they need to consider the implications in terms of the development of girls and other people's attitudes towards children,' he says.
As for my daughter Cecily, well, she will continue to skip to school in a pinafore and Clarks shoes.
Yes, she will almost certainly want to wear more fashionable clothes as she gets older, and it will be my responsibility to help her develop the confidence to reject the pressure to be prematurely sexy, through encouraging her in other interests, in developing good self-esteem and showing her better role models than Jordan.
But it would be nice if all shops and advertisers did their bit to help, too, with real children's clothes for real children. It's no more than she, and all other children, deserve.


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