Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Sex Offenders On-line

The news from America today reveals that US government authorities have begun searching networking sites and discovered that on MySpace alone there are more than 29,000 convicted sex offenders who have their profiles listed and who actively trawl the web. This figure is at least four times greater than the authorities had previously estimated.
Probably no other country has done this kind of analysis. In Australia where I am writing this blog there is no system for doing the cross-reference required. The email address of child sex abusers is not recorded anywhere and the government is not prepared to update its records to make such a search possible. In New Zealand it is even worse because they do not even have a paedophile register.
What both countries do know is that child sex abusers increasingly use network sites to meet and groom potential abuse victims. Just yesterday two more Australians were arrested in Sydney and Perth for trying to groom children on the net.
The American survey is a wake-up call. Trying to educate parents and children on the dangers of the net is only part of the solution. Something has to be done inside the net itself.

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