Continue monitoring children's internet activity

Chil­dren use tech­nol­ogy to play video games, watch movies, lis­ten to music and browse the Inter­net. Today’s tech­nol­ogy allows imme­di­ate Inter­net access from just about any­where. They can con­nect to the Inter­net with just about any hand held elec­tronic device as long as there is a wire­less ser­vice close by and chil­dren can be exposed to many things on the Inter­net, includ­ing pornography.

Inter­net pornog­ra­phy is esti­mated to be a$2.84 bil­lion dol­lar indus­try in the United States alone and child pornog­ra­phy is quickly becom­ing the biggest money maker with an esti­mated $3 bil­lion dol­lars being made annu­ally world­wide. Chil­dren could acci­den­tally be exposed to porno­graphic images while brows­ing the Inter­net but have a bet­ter chance of becom­ing a vic­tim of child pornography.

The U. S. Cus­toms Ser­vices esti­mated more than 100,000 Web sites offer child pornog­ra­phy in a study released in 2002 and, accord­ing to the Inter­net Watch Foun­da­tion, more than half of those sites are hosted in the United States.

Females between age 12 and 17 are most likely to become vic­tims of child pornog­ra­phy. Girls at this age are expe­ri­enc­ing bio­log­i­cal and body image changes and are search­ing for a “new” iden­tity. Teen girls some­times feel awk­ward dur­ing this time and will seek atten­tion from males.

The major­ity of child pornog­ra­phy offend­ers are male who lure young girls into believ­ing they care for them. They will shower them with atten­tion and gifts and may talk the vic­tim into pos­ing nude for pho­tos or engag­ing in sex while being pho­tographed or video­taped. The offender can then sell the pho­tos and videos to a Web site offer­ing child pornography.

We all know of the Inter­net preda­tor and how they talk vic­tims into meet­ing in per­son but, strangers made up only about 11 per­cent of child pornog­ra­phy offend­ers. Twenty-five per­cent of offend­ers were fam­ily mem­bers of the vic­tim and 64 per­cent were acquaintances.

Par­ents should not limit their con­ver­sa­tions with their chil­dren to the Inter­net preda­tor stranger. Par­ents should tell their chil­dren any­body, includ­ing fam­ily and friends, can hurt them. Let them know that if any­body does try to hurt them, it is not their fault and they can talk to you. If they do dis­close to you that some­one has tried to hurt them, let them know they did noth­ing wrong and they will not face con­se­quences. Con­tinue mon­i­tor­ing your child’s Inter­net activ­ity and who they are spend­ing time with and help keep our kids safe.

Keep­ing Our Kids Safe is brought to you by the Delaware Police Depart­ment and School Resource Offi­cer Rod Glazer.

Posted by Halley Miller on Mar 2 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.