Richard Hogan: Helping children to spot online dangers — like catfishing and grooming

Richard Hogan. Picture: Moya Nolan

Imagine for a moment you are a 12-year-old boy. Bored one evening, you receive a friend request on one of the social media platforms you’re active on. It’s a girl you don’t know, but you have friends in common.

You accept. You chat for a while, you have loads in common.

You can’t believe how lucky you are to have made such a good friend, sharing similar interests and outlook on life, she seems to really like you.

As the days roll on, you chat about everything and anything, she even offers support on family issues you are going through. And then, she tells you how much she likes you and wants to meet in real life and become boyfriend and girlfriend.

But first, she’d like to see your body. She sends you a pic of her chest. Nothing like this has ever happened to you before, it’s exciting.

Quickly, you return the gesture by sending her a pic of your torso. She likes it. But wants to see a little more. She sends a further pic of herself, it’s a little more graphic. You are not sure you want to send something else but you don’t want to be ‘dry’, so you do.

She really likes it but wants to see a little more, you’re not comfortable with sending more, and then she tells you if you don’t send what she wants she will post the nudes you have already sent all over social media, she tells you everyone will think you are a creepy pervert, sending an underage girl pictures like that. Now, all of a sudden the buzz, the excitement, the feelings you had for this girl quickly dissipate and you are terrified.

Trapped, your only option, as your 12-year-old mind sees it, is to give into the will of this girl. But of course, it isn’t a girl at all, but a middle-aged man, actively catfishing a child for his perverted pleasure.

This happens more than we would like to think. In fact, in my experience, I would say it is massively underreported because of the shame the targeted child feels about what they have been up to on their device.

I’m writing this, not to scare you but to warn you of the potential harm a child can experience online. And it is on the increase.

WORRYING TREND

The PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) recently released data revealing that crimes involving children being contacted online by sexual predators have risen by nearly a third since 2021.

In fact, officers working within a specialist unit set up in 2010, to combat online sexual abuse, reported that they have had their busiest year since it was set up.

The report illuminated a worrying trend, the procession of or sharing of indecent images increased by 22%.

In the Republic, nearly a year ago, Garda Damien McCarthy at the Garda Representative Association (GRA) annual conference, warned that children are being exploited online every day because of a serious backlog in cyber-crime investigations.

He called for a multi-agency response to the “extremely worrying” increase in online grooming of children.

When members of our police force tell us there is a serious issue that needs immediate attention, our government should listen and provide the necessary funding to deal with that issue, especially when it involves the exploitation of our children.

Why are we so slow to deal with such a serious issue?

This is a potentially life-threatening problem and parents are often unaware of the harm their children face, online.

Garda McCarthy outlined how parents have no idea what their children are doing online, he suggested it’s nearly impossible to keep up because of how these perpetrators change their avenues of contact.

OPEN COMMUNICATION

Any platform where children communicate with each other, requires particular vigilance from parents, TikTok, and gaming platforms can be used by perpetrators to connect with children.

And you should be aware of that and involved in your child’s online life. Parents often think; I don’t want to intrude on my child’s privacy, but they are too young to be given absolute privacy. Research shows the more parents are visibly involved in their child’s life the less likely they are to get involved in risky behaviour.

The predicament I painted at the start of this article, is more common than we would like to think.

The antidote is open communication with your child and calmly informing them of the dangers of accepting friends they do not know through their various platforms.

Children should be taught at home and in school how to spot red flags, and the need to report if they encounter someone with malicious intent.

The biggest problem here is shame and embarrassment, we must teach our children that there is no shame on their part for falling victim to these predators.

The abuse ends when children speak out.

We must teach our children to have a voice so that they can articulate a negative online experience without fear of embarrassment.