The average age of first sexual exploitation occurs to a teen at the tender age of 14 these days.
A conference on the subject was held this week and the statistic came from the study Sexually Exploited Youth in B.C., presented by Elizabeth Saewyc.
Sexual exploitation has become a creative art for some people. Through explicit and harassing text messages, emails and coercion over the Internet, our kids are being assaulted.
Perhaps some adults have experienced it too. One evening I was playing an online word game and my web partner, some stranger at the other end of the Internet ether, played a few words then suddenly in the message box the conversation moved from talk about intelligent word play to suggestive commentary and requests for photographs of myself.
Now, as a grown woman who takes no bull, I found the experience plain irritating. I was winning the game, darn it, but with his (or her) change in game demand, I typed out a few inventive lines of my own and shut it down.
But kids are curious. Kids test limits and boundaries. Kids experiment. Kids make mistakes and they are gullible, trusting and unusually cavalier at times. They are supposed to be. Those are the passionate, inspired characteristics that move them from child to adult, while those of us who care for them collectively hold our breath and wait to see how they come out on the other end of adolescence. They may get sucked in by a computer predator who knows how to groom them.
Do you keep the computer in a family room like the kitchen so, while not snooping, chances are less likely that your child will be victimized and if they are they'll inform you?
Do you know what live chat sites your kids are accessing including live animated action games or social rooms where they use an avatar? An avatar is an object, usually a cartoon character or picture, that represents the user. Predators use avatars to con children into believing they are kids too.
I think most parents fear their child will be lured away to some rendezvous with a predator in the big city, but sexual exploitation is far more insidious. It can include someone sending pornography to a youngster or coercing, cajoling and tricking them to make nude or erotic photos and videos of themselves and putting them on the Net. Once unleashed, there is no stopping those images from bouncing around the globe via computer connections for time eternal.
Many people, including my own geographically far-flung family, are using a program called Skype, which acts like a speakerphone and live video screen if using a web camera. Many new laptops have the cameras built right into them.
Technology offers all of us immeasurable opportunities to stay connected in a world where international travel and living scattered across the globe are more common than not.
I talk to and see my friend Laura in South America on work assignment. I catch up with an old paddling client in south Texas and I can show my folks how fast my new pup is growing.
But, one can also see the potential for sexual exploitation with such programming. I am constantly bombarded with invitations from people I do not know who are looking to "make friends."
If I were an inquisitive, globally-minded 15-year-old, I might be inclined to search for "pen" pals that way, and suddenly it is easy to see how our kids end up as cyber puppets with predators pulling the strings.
