Child Exploiters and The Internet
Name
Institution Affiliated
Child Exploiters and The Internet
Introduction
The internet, since its inception, has become a very invaluable communication and networking tool as it has brought people from all over the world closer, and it has also facilitated their communication through social networking sites and chatrooms. Because of the popularity of the internet and social networking sites today, minors found the allure, and many of them are on the internet as well. However, the internet is a dark place that also houses sexual predators and child exploiters like pedophiles, who use it to commit their crimes as they can make contact with these children anonymously and lure them into traps. According to Deirmenjian (2002), this ease of access and communication leaves children vulnerable to predators like pedophiles. Sexual offenders and child exploiters have learned the tricks of the internet, and they employ them ruthlessly in the pursuit of children and adolescents intending to exploit them sexually.
How Child Exploiters Use the Internet
The internet has a lot of benefits, and it also has the malicious characteristic of possessing the potential for people using it for sexual predation (Dombrowski et al., 2004). There are several ways in which pedophiles and other child exploiters and predators use the internet to find their victims. These ways include sourcing for and locating children on online chatrooms and social media sites. They use the internet to find their victims by going over social media sites looking at profiles and choosing them based on the age or assumed age by looking at the photos on the profiles as well as the information about the owner of the profile. They also use the internet to source new trends that appeal to the younger generation. For instance, they look for new music that many of the minors listen to and start building conversations based on new music. The minors then think of the predators as people who fall under the same age bracket as them, and they end up trusting them and consider these people as friends.
Pedophiles and other child exploiters have identified that many children and teenagers undergo some form of problem or other in their lives. Either in school because of their teachers and other students or at home because of their parents and siblings. The child exploiters have taken advantage of this fact, and they all pose as people willing to listen to the minors vent their frustrations online, as many of them tend to do. They sympathize with the children, who need someone to listen to them, and in no time, the children come to trust them. The predators usually target children and youths who are emotionally vulnerable as they make for “easier targets.” The predators also use the internet to gradually introduce sexual content to the children during their conversations or even share graphic photos and videos of children engaging in sexual activity. The main aim is for them to show and convince the youths that that kind of behavior or engaging in those sexual acts is typical, and society accepts it. According to Wolak et al. (2010), the predators do not hide their sexual intentions, and they usually make it clear that that is what they seek.
The sexual predators also use the conversations that they have had with the youth as leverage to ensure that the minors remain under them. When the children decide to end communication with the child exploiters, they threaten to tell on the children to their parents, using the shared communication as proof. This threat terrifies the children as they would rather not deal with their parents when they found out of everything that the child did. The offenders also use the internet to impersonate other teenagers s as to lure the youths into meeting up and engaging them in sexual activity. The internet offers some form of anonymity, and the offenders create profiles on social media platforms and online chatrooms using false information to appeal to the youths.
Conclusion
Although the internet has a lot of benefits, it has exposed children to a world of cybercrime like child pornography (Taylor et al., 2015). Child exploiters use the internet to find their victims and in no time and pretend to care for them, and they also profess feelings of love and romance for the minors, but they have only one agenda. They use the internet to gradually introduce sexual content that depicts children engaging in sexual behavior, to lure the youths.
References
Deirmenjian, J. M. (2002). Pedophilia on the Internet. Journal of Forensic Science, 47(5), 1-3. https://www.astm.org/DIGITAL_LIBRARY/JOURNALS/FORENSIC/PAGES/JFS15487J.htm
Dombrowski, S. C., LeMasney, J. W., Ahia, C. E., & Dickson, S. A. (2004). Protecting children from online sexual predators: technological, psychoeducational, and legal considerations. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 35(1), 65. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2004-10365-008
Taylor, R. W., Fritsch, E. J., & Liederbach, J. (2015). Digital Crime and Digital Terrorism (3rd ed.). London, United Kingdom: Pearson.
Wolak, J., Finkelhor, D., Mitchell, K. J., & Ybarra, M. L. (2010). Online “predators” and their victims: Myths, realities, and implications for prevention and treatment. https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-632111.pdf