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PAEDOPHILES LURING
YOUR CHILD ON THE INTERNET

REAL Women of Canada
(Realistic, Equal, Active, for Life)
Is a national women's organization.
We are a non-partisan non-denominational pro-family lobby group.

Box 8813 Station T
Ottawa ON K1G 3J1
Tel 613-236-4001
Fax 613-236-7203
Email realwcna@on.aibn.com
Web www.realwomenca.com

PAEDOPHILES LURING YOUR CHILD ON THE INTERNET
The Internet provides wonderful opportunities for learning, since it truely is an information superhighway and an excellent way for children to access information. However, danger lurks there. It is now known that cross-border paedophiles are using the Internet to target vulnerable children.

These paedophiles mask their identities and pretend to be children or young adults to lure children into situations where they can be sexually abused.

Canadian children are especially vulnerable to cross-border paedophiles because, (1) the age of consent for sexual activity in Canada is set at only 14 years of age, which is one of the lowest in the western world, and (2) there are more than 10 million Internet users in Canada. Even if you do not have a computer yourself, your children will certainly know where they can access one. In fact, according to Microsoft Canada, 99% of children in Canada have access to the Internet.

What is truly alarming, according to Microsoft Canada, is that 25% of children having access to a computer have been approached by a stranger on-line. More shocking is that 15% of them have actually gone out to meet an Internet stranger without their parents knowing. Some of these children have never returned home.

In 2002, the federal government amended the Criminal Code to create the new offence of using the Internet to communicate with children for sexual purposes. This legistration, Although an important step to better protect your children, is not the only answer to this growing problem. Parents also have an important role in being vigilant in order to protect children from dangers on the Internet.
What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Children*
  1. Ask your children to show you what they do in cyberspace.
  2. Get to know the sites your children frequent, and who their on-line pals are.
  3. Place the computer in a central location in the home, not the children's bedrooms. This way everyone in the family can have access to it, and you can keep an eye on what your children are doing without invading their privacy too much.
  4. Once you have learned what your children are doing on-line, you can determine whether you need to impliment any safe guards, such as filtering software to block access to adult-oriented sites. Also, some commercial services are monitoring chat rooms and are offering special sites for children. You can limit your children's access to these sites by using parental controls available from service providers.
  5. Watchdog groups such as CyberAngels or SafeSurf monitor the Internet sites that are unsuitable for children. They rate those sites as being child friendly or for adults only. Information on such sites is availiable from these organizations.
However, none of these safeguards is completely "child proof." Children are often able to get around blocking systems and figure out passwords. People who prey on children are even more sophisticated.

Therefore, to ensure the safety of your children, request that your child follow guide lines when surfing the Net. Post these guidelines by the computer.


*(We gratefully acknowledge information which was provided by Child Find Canada, http://www.childfind.ca/cyberspace/safeguide.htm)

A Child's On-Line Safety Guidelines
  • Set up rules with your parents for going on-line. You can all decide when and for how long you can use the computer. You can also decide where you are going to go in cyberspace. Do not go to other areas without your parent's permission.
  • Never give out any information about yourself that would enable someone to track you down. This includes your full name, address, telephone number, and name of your school. Never send a photo to anyone you've met on-line.
  • Never agree to meet with anyone you've met on-line unless you first check with your parents. If your parents agree to the meeting make sure it's in a public place and bring one of your parents with you.
  • Always tell your parents immediately if something happens to you while you are on-line that makes you feel uncomfortable or scared. This could be something you see while you're using the computer or something someone says to you.
  • If you do get an on-line message that makes you feel unconfortable or scared, do not respond to it. Tell your parents about it so that they can report it to the appropriate person.
As parents, one of our greatest fears we have regarding the Internet is that our children will link up with someone who will persuade them to meet in real life and then harm them. Be involved so this doesn't happen to you.