Okay, this isn't a subject that anyone likes to talk about, but the fact is that there are bad people out there, they are online, and they are looking for our kids.
ProtectKids.com, the Internet safety site of Enough.org, states that "89% of sexual solicitations were made in either chat rooms or instant messages and 1 in 5 youth (ages 10-17 years) has been sexually solicited online (JAMA, 2001)."
"Considering that 25% of kids online participate in real time chat and 13 million use instant messaging, the risks of such children, either knowingly or unknowingly, interacting with a predator is alarming. "
ProtectKids.com also offers a helpful list of "Rules 'N Tools" to help us protect our Social Networking kids.
Fellow Examiner Susan Carney presented a great article in July titled, "Online Safety 101: How to protect kids from online sexual predators"
Knowledge is power.
The bad guys know how to find our kids. We need to know how to protect them!
-Perry
The national Enough is Enough campaign was formally launched in November of 1992 by a group of women concerned about the harmful effects of illegal pornography and its link to the sexual exploitation of children, women and men. You can read more about Enough.org here.
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Comments
Not a subject anyone wants to talk about, true - but it is something you need to practice. I work in a prison and part of my unit is the sex offender treatment program where they house some of the most dangerous predators out there, in hopes of (not curing, obviously), but preventing recidivism. It's not the crowd of people anyone wants to associate with, but the bottom line is that these are just the people that were caught. Who knows how many other times they offended - and who knows how many others are out there. The fact is - even after they serve time, they're going to get released and the worst part of it all? The Sex offender registries are actually the best part. Isn't it better to know where they are, than it is to not know? After working here, its really hard to trust anyone, as you can imagine. It's a scary world - and we all need to be cognizant of who and what's out there, because evil lives on every day.
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