News that paedophiles in the UK and the US are grooming Malaysian children via social media chatrooms and video chat apps has shocked the nation, but what can be done to ward off this threat? Suzanna Pillay and Audrey Vijaindren ask the experts
PARENTS can protect children from potential sex predators and paedophiles by denying them smartphones.
Child activists say parents should instead consider getting their children basic handphones that enable them to make calls, send text messages and take pictures.
Alternatively, these phones should come with only a basic plan without data packages, so that they cannot access the Internet freely.
Voice of the Children chairman Sharmila Sekaran says identifying what they do with their phones when their parents are not around is difficult and children should not be given access to the Internet on their phones without supervision.
Parents, she says, should only get phones for their children which allow them to keep tabs on their whereabouts and have camera functions so that they can still take selfies, but cannot post them anywhere online.
“They just need a basic phone that enables parents to be able to keep track of their whereabouts. A phone with a camera on it to take selfies is fine, so long as they can’t post their selfies online.
“Children are going to call their parents boring or accuse them of cramping their style, but parents should have the confidence that what they are doing is right and for the child’s own good.”
According to the results of the CyberSAFE in Schools 2015 survey released by Digi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd, together with CyberSecurity Malaysia and the Education Ministry earlier this year, more than 90 per cent of schoolchildren in Malaysia use the Internet.
Of this, 83 per cent are vulnerable to online risks due to minimal protective actions taken.
The survey reported that some of these children had sent intimate photos or videos to someone on the Internet (1.39 per cent), had been asked to upload intimate photos or videos of themselves on the Internet (1.45 per cent), had looked at sexual images on the Internet because they were persuaded by a friend (1.55 per cent) and had accessed pornography on the Internet (1.70 per cent).
The survey gathered response from more than 18,000 schoolchildren from 216 secondary schools over a period of seven months to identify their experience with existing and new categories of online risk, as well as their capacity to protect and recover from negative experiences.
In a New Sunday Times report early this year, international child online protection expert Marie-Laure Lemineur warned of the dangers of the Internet.
“When children are connected, they are exposed to a wide range of risks that are associated with online activities,” Lemineur had said.
Another research by the United Nations’ Children’s Fund (UNICEF) established that online interaction and engaging in risky behaviour online create an environment that enables sex abuse to unfold.
With the advancement in telecommunication technology, Sharmila says parenting is made more challenging.
“Children are so savvy with the Internet and they know what to do with the available mobile apps.
“Unfortunately, many of the children don’t have the skill nor capacity yet to assess what is right and wrong, or how far you can take something on the Internet.
“As an adult, we are able to read or see something on the Internet, assess and distil for ourselves, but a child does not have the capacity to assess.
“That’s where the danger is.”
She says paedophiles will target any child, anywhere in the world that they can access.
If parents and the government are not alert and do not put up the checks and blocks, our children will be targets.
“These paedophiles also target children in their own countries. In communities where children are more aware or mature, it may be harder for these paedophiles to infiltrate.”
What can be done?
“First of all, parents need to start parenting their children, and not allow nannies or gadgets to replace them.
“Parenting means spending quality time with your child and getting to know how they think.
“Parents should talk to their children about the dangers of the Internet and online grooming practices, so that they can stay safe online.
“They should be present when children are using the computer, when doing their homework and they need to monitor what sites their children are gaining access to.
“There are some very innocuous search words that can lead you to
the wrong place, for example,
while researching things like pandas and chipmunks, their children
could be accessing an online social setting and talking to someone there.
“It is important that if parents are allowing their children to surf the Internet unsupervised, they keep themselves up to date about the latest parental control software that can make their children’s activities over the Internet more transparent and block inappropriate sites.”
She says in addition to monitoring the Internet usage of their children, they should place the computers and gadgets which enable access to the Internet in open areas of their home where the child is less likely to visit forbidden sites.
This will also ensure that even
if someone has reached their
child online, it is hard to prolong
the contact.
Grooming occurs over a long period of time. It starts as a friendship before it escalates.
When the groomer has gained the trust of the child, his demands become more explicit.
A lot of children who end up in this situation are not being parented properly so when someone shows an interest in them or what they perceive as love, that’s when they start gaining the child’s trust and convincing them to perform their twisted demands.
“One of the scariest things that
is happening in Malaysia now is
how easily information on the Internet is accessed from mobile phones.
“Previously, it was only from computers because our phones were not connected to the Net.
“Now, there are amazing data packages so children are moving away from computers and iPads to phones.”