PARENTS, BEWARE OF SOCIAL MEDIA SEX PESTS
Internet sites are used to lure victims
FACEBOOK, Mxit, Twitter … there is no shortage of social networks on the world wide web. Most people use social media to stay in touch with friends, and even to make new ones, but they are also being used by sex pests to lure their next victims.
You may remember the notorious so-called Facebook rapist who was last year sentenced to a 50-year-jail term (later reduced to 30 years).
Thabo Bester used social networks to lure women, claiming he was an international modeling scout.
Child sexual predators have been known to use similar techniques.
Mxit’s head of communications Sarah Wright advises caution in cases in which one meets a stranger on any social network.
“In the same way that one would be cautious when meeting someone at a bar or party, or wherever it is, one needs to be cautious of people they meet in cyberspace. In fact, I would say, avoid meeting them in person where possible.”
Such advice is perhaps not often heeded and, as with the Facebook rapist ’ s victims, one might end up meeting that seemingly harmless stranger after several days, months or weeks of “getting to know them” on the internet.
Similarly, children develop a trusting relationship with a perpetrator. This is through what the law terms “sexual grooming”. This refers to the deliberate act of establishing an emotional connection with a child to lower their inhibitions with the intention of engaging them in sexual acts.
In social media, this is a common phenomenon. According to Wright, Mxit often deals with such cases.
“On a monthly basis, we deal with an average of two such cases,” she says.
“We ’ ve got a support team and their job is to manage complaints from users. That would include complaints about harassment.”
Once a complaint has been received, Mxit is able to engage the South African Police Service in tracking down the culprits and letting the law take its course.
Wright strongly emphasises the importance of educating users on how to deal with and how to identify a potential sexual predator.
Mxit, she adds, does take initiatives to educate its users. The responsibility, however, ends with the user.
While South Africa has no specific laws dealing with sexual cyber crimes Karabo Ngidi from the Centre for Child Law in Pretoria says the law is broad enough to prosecute sexual predators who lure children using the internet.
“I think the provisions of the act are broad enough to be used with regard to a case where a child has been groomed,” she says.
Unfortunately, social networking companies don’t have the capacity to stop perpetrators in their path unless the potential victim takes charge.
“We take the privacy of our users very seriously. We don’t moderate their private chats. We only do so if a subpoena has been issued,” Wright adds.
This means one would have to raise a red flag by reporting someone they suspect to be a sexual predator before the law can be involved. –