POLOKWANE – A 16-year-old learner from a school in the city could face criminal charges after posting pornographic pictures of herself on social media, having intimate conversations of a sexual nature with other learners including a 12-year-old boy and using a school computer during school hours to do so.
According to the principal of the school involved, who spoke to Review on condition that the school was not identified, parents were horrified when it was revealed that the school had discovered that this girl, as well as other learners regularly had such conversations with each other through social media and also sent each other pornographic photos and video clips of themselves.
There is even a word for what these children are doing: they call it sexting, and most parents do not even know their children are doing it.
“It is cool to be on social media and even cooler to have a few accounts to work with. No one really checks your age and you can put anything you want on Facebook and other sites. No one will know,” one 13-year-old girl told Review.
Learners from various primary and high schools who spoke to Review, said they had often lied about their ages and created fake profiles on social media. Some of them admitted that they had also been caught out before by other people who chatted to them, and lied about their age.
“This is not only a problem for the school itself. These learners make use of their school time to sext, meaning that they lose out on a lot of learning, and that is the real tragedy,” a teacher who did not wish to be identified, said.
School principals who spoke to Review said parents needed to get themselves clued up on social media and other websites their children chatted on. They also warned that learners found sexting during school hours could be expelled from school.
A parent who eventually found out that her 12-year-old daughter was receiving pornographic photos and video clips from boys in gr. 11 and gr. 12, and even from older men, said she was clueless before she made her heartbreaking discovery.
“I did not know that my daughter could block me on Facebook or WhatsApp and that is why I was not aware of when she was on the sites and what she was doing.
“I had no idea what 2go chat was and never even thought of checking on what websites she was spending her time on,” she said.
She added that she had not realised how easily her daughter was able to do this, as she had been using her cellphone openly and had not seemed to be hiding anything.
Social development spokesperson, Adéle van der Linde, said according to a six-month study done by United Nations International Children’s’ Emergency Fund and the Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention last year among 93 schools countrywide, in which 1 400 children participated, 59% of children had already used a social network by the time they were 10 years old and 43% had messaged strangers online by the age of 12 years.
The study also revealed that Facebook was the social network most likely to have underage members, breaching its minimum age of 13 years and 52% of children between the ages of eight and 16 years admitted that they had disregarded the official age limit.
The survey further found that a child’s social media development began at around nine years old and over the next four years, their internet activities evolved from just viewing content online to being active on social media.
The greatest proportion of internet activity took place when children reached the age of 11, which was when they would be likely to post an image or video of themselves, post a nasty comment online and set-up a fake social media profile, the study found.
According to Hoërskool Pietersburg child psychologist, Juanita Marx, sexting was not a new phenomenon.
She said children who were unhappy with themselves and their circumstances were especially susceptible.
“Children find that they can be anyone they want and do what they want on social media. They can be blonde and sexy if they want to because social media gives them that opportunity,” Marx explained.
She said the best defence parents had in this situation was to ensure they knew what their children did on their cellphones.
“Find out what social media or websites they are on, what their log-in user names and passwords are and what the content of what they are posting is.
“Social media is here to stay. It is not going to go away. The best thing parents can do is to be on social media to know how things work and to live with the times,” Marx said.
Provincial police spokesperson, Col Ronél Otto, warned that children were also punishable by law for the distributing of pornography, regardless of their ages.
