Hello warriors for children,
I’m usually a behind the scenes volunteer here at TJFFC, but this week I am so honoured to be asked to provide this guest blog for you all. I recently stumbled across an interesting and empowering video by a fellow warrior against human trafficking – Exoduscry, on Instagram and just knew this was a great resource and tool for everyone interested in protecting our precious children. In particular for parents who may be unaware of how gaming consoles and 3rd party chat platforms, are deliberately redirecting our children to “porn” exposure that amongst other things, can include user generated content of uploaded child torture, abuse, animal abuse and violence.
The below interview with Kristen Jensen founder of Defend Young Minds.com, discusses digital self-defence tools to empower and protect our children, who are the most vulnerable they’ve ever been online in a porn saturated, over sexualised society where paedophiles are only a click away from entering our children’s devices. Despite the technology existing to require proof of age on these types of websites, the founders continue to refuse to utilise it to protect children.
Kristen Jensen discusses the types of resources, books and free guides that she has created for parents to start the conversation with their children, around prevention of exposure and also resources for those who have been exposed and those that may be already addicted.
As a Mum, I have seen first-hand how common place this issue has become. With both of my boys in grade 4 and 6, reporting back to me the strange and inappropriate behaviours of their peers, after starting at new school shortly after the beginning of this year. Till we reached the point where my 11yr old eventually reported he heard a class peer encouraging others to watch “child porn” material, claiming it was “really good” and that he did it every day.
We took our matter to our school Vice Principal who sadly felt at a loss for what they could do as a school, because he explained the children will often be on the oval crowded around a phone, but that they soon dissipate at a teacher’s presence, making any proof difficult to obtain. I then went to my local Police station, where I was told unfortunately, they cannot “parent the parents” in my community and that the Child Protective Services were already dealing with an incident on the other end of the spectrum, of a young schoolgirl who had uploaded content of herself online. The Principal was finally forced to act, because the student in question had threatened my child with “bashing” if he told anyone.
As we continue to ride the tides of challenging times, with online learning and often restricted physical interaction, I felt these resources were timely and invaluable. Empower yourself and those you love, learn more and watch the full interview here.
Namaste
Amanda Morgan