The recent leaked pornographic videos of the young girls on social media got me thinking really hard and trying to come up with reasons to justify their actions.
I am an older sister to two teenage girls and I feel that this incident could happen to any child at that age.
These are young people who still need to be taken care of and are incapable of making life-changing decisions. In the back of my head I am thinking that they were not thinking straight and did not consider the implications of their actions.
Who can we blame for this? Would it be fair to blame television programmes or can we blame their parents for failing to monitor what they watch?
Can we blame the parents for buying them smartphones at this age and not monitoring their internet surfing patterns?
I know one parent would say they had to buy the phone because their child had to use it for homework research.
The child had to be on social media groups because they often discus assignment problem areas there.
I don’t see anything wrong with that, but how often do you monitor the child’s phone?
Do you know some of the people he/she is interacting with or do you trust the child to be on their best behaviour?
Another thing that I really want to know from parents is: do you know your child’s new friends?
When your child informs you that she is going to a friend’s sleepover, do you call the friend’s parents and confirm this?
Do you personally drop them off at the house and confirm that indeed there is a sleepover and there is an adult to supervise their activities?
Do these young children have so much freedom that they get away with things they should not because the adults in their lives are too busy working themselves to the bone to afford them the best out of life?
We are living in the twenty-first century where technology is taking over and children are exposed to a lot at a very young age.
If they are left unmonitored and expected to do as they are taught at home, their parents will be shocked – like those of the young girls in the viral videos.
There are available applications which can be downloaded to restrict certain websites.
As a parent, go through the phone whenever you want to monitor your child’s social media activities.
Please don’t tell me that you don’t want to invade a 10-year-old’s privacy.
Parents should keep up with the times to protect their children because there are vultures lurking on social media waiting to pounce on young girls.
In Gauteng alone, between September 2016 and February 2017, the police closed down more than five brothels where young girls were found after being kidnapped, made to take drugs and forced into prostitution.
These girls were lured with money, love and employment.
