Online sexual predators target social media groups
Do your children have cellphones or other mobile devices? Do you know what chat groups they’re on and what information is being shared, asks Terence Pillay.
LISTEN: Terence Pillay chats to Marc Hardwick from the Guardian
This week we’ve heard Keri Miller’s series of interviews on East Coast Breakfast that concerned the abduction of a group of school girls by paedophiles Gert van Rooyen and Joey Haroff. This happened almost thirty years ago when there was no social media or Internet. But with the advent of technology and connectivity, the incidents of paedophiles infiltrating social media groups and platforms targeting children have risen rapidly.
Marc Hardwick from the Guardian has worked on a few cases of sexual predators that have found their way on to innocent WhatsApp groups set up by children to share information about school, sport or just communicate as a group of friends.
Marc says it’s very easy for this network of paedophiles to access these groups, creating fake profiles and luring children into swapping inappropriate pictures and videos. At the end of the day, these actions have strong legal ramifications not just for the perpetrator, if he or she is caught, but also for the children in the group that are sharing these images and videos. They can face up to thirty years in prison for the creation, possession, and distribution of pornographic material.
In another alarming trend, Marc says he’s worked on a number of cases involving primary school children who are now “sexting”. Sexting is sending, receiving, or forwarding sexually explicit messages, photographs or images, primarily between mobile phones. And these are children at primary school level!
Marc says children who encounter these incidents and want to report it anonymously can download the Guardian app and report it there. These leads will go directly to the Guardian and Marc will investigate it. Or if the school is a subscriber it will go directly to whoever manages the app at the school and the leads will be investigated.
Do you monitor your child’s engagement with social media or the Internet? What precautions do you have in place to ensure your child is protected from the reach of online sexual predators?
Marc Hardwick from the Guardian has worked on a few cases of sexual predators that have found their way on to innocent WhatsApp groups set up by children to share information about school, sport or just communicate as a group of friends.
Marc says it’s very easy for this network of paedophiles to access these groups, creating fake profiles and luring children into swapping inappropriate pictures and videos. At the end of the day, these actions have strong legal ramifications not just for the perpetrator, if he or she is caught, but also for the children in the group that are sharing these images and videos. They can face up to thirty years in prison for the creation, possession, and distribution of pornographic material.
In another alarming trend, Marc says he’s worked on a number of cases involving primary school children who are now “sexting”. Sexting is sending, receiving, or forwarding sexually explicit messages, photographs or images, primarily between mobile phones. And these are children at primary school level!
Marc says children who encounter these incidents and want to report it anonymously can download the Guardian app and report it there. These leads will go directly to the Guardian and Marc will investigate it. Or if the school is a subscriber it will go directly to whoever manages the app at the school and the leads will be investigated.
Do you monitor your child’s engagement with social media or the Internet? What precautions do you have in place to ensure your child is protected from the reach of online sexual predators?
You can email Terence Pillay at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @terencepillay1 and tweet him your thoughts.