Editorial | Parents must help foil online predators
- An alarming rise in child pornography and ‘sextortion’ as the pandemic forces more children to stay home calls for greater moral guidance
It is wise to be wary of giving advice to parents about bringing up their children. Otherwise there is a risk of being seen to trespass upon parental prerogative, especially in moral, ethical or religious matters.
But concerns about the safety and welfare of young people may justify an exception to this rule. An increase in online child pornography and sex crimes when the pandemic kept children at home raises a case in point.
This has prompted a senior police officer and social welfare officer to urge parents to engage more actively on sensitive topics such as sex education. According to police, children as young as seven are increasingly becoming victims of these offences.
The force also said cases of “sextortion”, in which victims aged 12 to 64 were blackmailed after compromising online chats were recorded, jumped from 171 last year to 616 between January and September this year.
Unlawful sexual intercourse with girls under 16 rose from 71 in the first nine months of last year to 85 in the same period this year, and the number of abusers who found their prey online rose from 25 to 38. “The situation is alarming,” said Chief Inspector Cheung Po-yuet of the police’s Family Conflict and Sexual Violence Policy Unit.