Protecting Vulnerable Young People in Cyberspace From Sexual Abuse
Julia Martellozzo · 2011
Internet use has grown considerably over the last 5 years, and information technology (IT) now forms a core part of the formal education system in many e Context of Online Abuse 153 Legislation and Protecting Children Online 155 Educational Context of Internet Safety 156 Police-School Partnerships 156 e Metropolitan Police Safer Surng Program 158 Research Methods 159 Results 160 Children’s Internet Use 160 Children’s Experiences in Chat Rooms 161 Children’s Views About Gender and Risk of Sexual Abuse 162 Impact of the Safer Surng Police Program 163 Discussion 164 Conclusion 167 References 168 countries, ensuring that each new generation of Internet users is more adept than the last. Research conducted in the United Kingdom by Livingstone and Bober (2004) suggested that the majority of young people aged 9-19 accessed the Internet at least once a day. e Internet provides the opportunity to interact with friends on social networking sites such as MySpace and Bebo and enables young people to access information in a way that previous generations would not have thought possible. It also allows users to post detailed personal information, which may be accessed by any site visitor and provides a platform for peer communication hitherto unknown. ere is however, increasing evidence that the Internet is used by some adults to access children and young people to “groom” them for the purposes of sexual abuse; MySpace expelled 29,000 convicted sex o enders and is being sued in the United States by parents who claim that their children were contacted by sex o enders on the site and consequently abused (BBC Online, 2007). e Internet also plays a role in facilitating the production and distribution of indecent illegal images of children (Davidson & Martellozzo, 2005; Quayle & Taylor, 2003).