Tragedy of sex pests on the loose national disaster
Social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat and Twitter are the most common places for online bullying.
What you need to know:
- Parents need to befriend their adolescent children and also monitor their online engagement to ascertain their security
- Children have reportedly committed suicide after playing online games.
Last Wednesday, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) posted an alert on Twitter: “Sexual predators have devised new tricks of abducting teenage girls, in a new trend targeting school going girls and those who have just completed their secondary school education.
“The predators prey on the young girls through their social media accounts, where they obtain their personal information before they lure them into their trap.”
The tweet came after a bus conductor on the Nairobi- Mombasa route reported having ferried a girl who claimed to be visiting her “brother”, a man she met on social media. She did not have enough money and her host was to top up the bus fare. The planned meet-up failed after the man who showed up at the bus station to pick her up turned out to be different from the one she had been ‘dating’ online.
Social media
Similar cases have been reported before of girls going missing with social media filled with horrid stories and gory pictures of raped and murdered young women in institutions of higher learning.
Many fall prey to the predators due to abject poverty, lack of sexuality education and the looming social media fallacy created on quick wins and success, attributed to peer pressure. The promise of “I will make your life better” is enough to trick them. The sex pests have mastered the art of exaggerating their life on social media with fake posts on wealth and riches, promising a good life for their victims.
The Ministry of Health reported a spike in sexual violence cases in the country at the peak of Covid-19 pandemic last year. And of the 5,000 cases, 65 per cent involved poor girls under 18. A National Violence Against Children Survey report showed 13.5 per cent of girls and 2.4 per cent of boys had experienced sexual violence at 17 with the pandemic escalating due to Covid-19 containment measures.
Studies on social media consumption show 88.5 per cent of Kenyans use Facebook and 88.6 per cent WhatsApp. Most of such platforms are used for social interactions and connections, acquiring information and knowledge, business, entertainment and emotional experiences and pleasure.
Internet
One may argue that not every Kenyan has access to the internet. But studies have shown that those without it, especially in rural areas, use cybercafés to access social media. Young people are mostly found on social media, spending up to eight hours a day browsing.
Children have reportedly committed suicide after playing online games. Those behind these apps and platforms tend not to act for the common good but selfish fulfilment.
Life has gone digital. But the online space has also brought with it a bucketful of consequences. The police should further investigate social media sex pests and bring them to book.
Parents need to befriend their adolescent children and also monitor their online engagement to ascertain their security. The general public must call out sexual abusers and practise a critical and fundamental interaction behaviour of using online spaces for social good.
