The nation was recently hit with a gripping story of minors travelling miles to meet up with someone they had been chatting with on phone. This came to light after they were posted as missing persons and luckily, they were found. As a mother of girl children, I could only imagine what pain the parents were going through. These missing children are too young to make such a move as was reported.

Online grooming is when someone builds a relationship with a young person online and has control over that person emotionally, because they want to trick or pressure them into doing something that may hurt or harm them. In this modern world, anyone can be groomed, its not only the girl child we should worry about. Online grooming can happen to both girls and boys. Any young person and some adults can be at risk from grooming, regardless of age, gender, race, or location and it is never the fault of the victim. 

Online groomers use many different methods. They may use fake accounts and photos or say they enjoy the same hobbies and interests as the young person they are grooming. Others may pretend to be modelling agents, sports coaches, celebrities, or influencers. However, not all groomers will choose to hide who they really are and some may try to build a connection or develop a ‘mentor’ type relationship based on their identity and a motto of “you’re not alone” to provide on reassuring feelings.
Online predators often commit online child sexual abuse on the Internet. These could happen on any online platform, such as social media, gaming, or messaging apps, and could include content such as photos, videos, posts, webpages, messages, or fake profiles.

Online Predators use explicit content to harass or bully or blackmail children online. The challenge we have as most adults is that we grew up in strict homes where we hardly spoke to our parents and hence most of us are not making our children to be our friends. It is our job to keep and nourish the friendship with our children so that they are free to talk to us whenever they are in trouble or not sure about something. Leaving the children to learn life skills from their peers is a recipe for disaster. For children who are in day school, these are lucky because they can talk and chat with guardians daily. For those in boarding school, as parents/guardians, we have a huge task of making deliberate effort to talk and catch up with them when they are on school holidays.

A predator’s goal is to lure and manipulate a child into believing they care for your child more than his or her parents or family. An Internet predator creates a fictitious online personality that emotionally replaces the trusted parent or guardian in a child’s mind. The tragedy of Internet victims is that they are not only physically and emotionally harmed, but they also harbor feelings of guilt and shame because in many instances they have wilfully met their “fictitious friend”.
Predators view the process of finding and tracking down a child as a hunt and a game. They spend a lot of time, over many months, breaking down barriers to get the child to feel comfortable enough to divulge personal information.
Predators develop relationships by offering whatever a child seems to need, emotionally or literally luring them with gifts. Some children who are sad, bored, or lonely will turn to the Internet to have an emotional need met. These children are particularly vulnerable to “grooming” and need to internalize the importance of protecting their personal information. Most young people are interested in the latest iPhone. My soon to be 7 year old was describing an iphone 17 pro. I honestly was blank about the latest iphone and don’t clearly see the fuss. But most young people are interested in owning the latest phone brand on the market and if someone promised to get them a phone, they can be so naïve and agree to anything absurd.
Lets teach children that personal information is much more than just a name, address, or phone number. It includes anything that lets a predator know something specific about the child: the name of their school, favorite food or hobbies.
Online predators are skilled in playing back emotionally what they see in the child. This “mirroring” creates an illusion of friendship designed to break down the barriers of “stranger danger.” For example, if a child is lonely, the predator mirrors that emotion and tries to fill the void by telling the child that he understands how it feels to be lonely and that he would like to be his/her friend. Predators mimic the child’s emotional language and play back the emotions they see in an attempt to diminish his or her embarrassments.
In protecting our young ones especially in this age where electronic gadgets are a necessity for school and communication, it is important that we help our children by;

• Ensuring that when ever possible, limit online contact to people they know and trust. And use of privacy settings to protect personal accounts and content.
• Teaching them that if someone online is making them feel uncomfortable, let them speak to an adult they can trust straight away (this means you should have an open and free relationship where a child can freely talk to you)
• Emphasizing to them that if they make friends with someone online whom they do not know offline, they should not share personal information such as where they live, go to school or photos of themselves.
• Consistently making them understand that if someone whom they only know online asks to meet up with them, they need to inform you as a parent or guardian immediately.

For adults, the Internet age has connected people like never before – with technology such as email, instant messaging and social media enabling you to meet new people online with relative ease and some have found their happily ever after. More often, people decide to take their online communication to the next level: meeting in person. While this can be a positive move in developing a face-to-face relationship, sometimes things can go very wrong. There have been many cases where people have met online acquaintances who they trusted and then ended up being robbed, swindled, abducted, raped or even killed.
As an adult when if you decide to meet an online friend in person:

• Never let the person fetch you from home or work.

• Meet in public places only. Make it a place of your choosing, and somewhere you don’t normally go – because if things go
wrong, you wouldn’t want them finding you there in future.

• Try to have one or more strong and trusted friends with you, if possible, or at least make safety arrangements like letting someone know where you’re going, who you’re going to meet and what to do if they don’t hear from you in a certain period of time.

• During the meeting, avoid going to any secluded area where there’s no one to see or help you if things go wrong.

• Take things at your own pace. Never be pressured to do anything you’re uncomfortable with – no matter what the person says.

• From the start of the meeting, lay down your rules – and don’t be afraid to end the meeting if they violate your rules. Try to have your own transport nearby so that you can leave quickly if need be.

• Do thorough background checks if online friend wants to take the relationship to another level such as marriage otherwise you might end up being trafficked, or murdered.
We cannot ignore the fact that the times we live are modern times and thinking that if simply do not buy electronic gadgets for our children, then they are safe. Children will access social media and the internet from their peers. It is our responsibility to consistently teach them on the dangers of technology and not leave it to the schools or worse, their friends. As my teacher friend Winnie puts it, “school is for AEIOU while home is for morals”.
Seek help when in need, visit a Counsellor near you!