Child grooming
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Child grooming, in the context of this article, refers to actions deliberately undertaken with the aim of befriending a child, in order to lower a child's sexual inhibitions or establish an intimate friendship in preparation to the eventual act of sexual intercourse with the child.
The phrase 'child grooming' can also mean preparing a child for a future activity or role outside of a sexual context. This can include educating the child with age-appropriate information, ensuring the child knows how to behave in a social setting as well as other benign activities essential for normal child development. This definition is outside of the context of this article.
The act of grooming a child sexually may include activities that are legal in and of themselves, as well as acts which are illegal in some jurisdictions, such as showing pornography to the child by which the groomer may seek to arouse the child sexually, arouse his/her sexual curiosity, or to persuade the child that sexual activity is normal between adults and children. The groomers use various grooming tactics to accomplish their goals.[1]
Grooming behaviors may begin with seemingly appropriate acts toward children, such as taking an interest in their hobbies and sharing skills with them. Grooming behaviors may later involve actions that lead the child to feel obligated to the adult, such as using his or her societal position as an adult in order to help the child do things such as skip school or avoid punishments. Grooming can also take the form of an adult continually telling a child that he or she is more mature than other children and sharing personal information with the child based on the dynamic that the child is mature enough to understand adult issues. This last type of grooming also serves to distance the child from other peers and trusted adults, because he or she begins to feel that others will not understand or approve of having a peer-type relationship with an adult.[citation needed]
In a residential sexual offender treatment program, it is typical for treatment providers to work with offenders on recognizing grooming behaviors. Providers will confront an offender if he or she is observed engaging in behaviors such as offering favors or compliments to a person with whom he or she does not appear to have a friendship that would warrant such behavior.[citation needed]
Sexual grooming of children also occurs on the Internet. The internet provides a large pool of potential victims for child pornographers and sex offenders. These "cyber stalkers" may either lurk around or pretend to be children while learning details and earning the trust of their target victims. Their goals may include online sexual activity (in chat rooms) or meeting the child in person.[citation needed]
In 2003, MSN implemented restrictions in their chat rooms to help protect children from adults seeking sexual conversations with them, to avoid the risk of such conversations leading to sexual contact. In 2005, Yahoo! chat rooms were investigated by the New York State attorney general's office for allowing users to create rooms whose names suggested that they were being used for this purpose. That October, Yahoo! agreed to "implement policies and procedures designed to ensure" that such rooms would not be allowed.[2]
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[edit] Criminal offences
[edit] General
In its report, Protection of Children Against Abuse Through New Technologies, the Council of Europe Cybercrime Convention Committee [1] addressed the emerging issues of violence against children through the use of new technologies (the issue of child pornography on the Internet is already covered by Article 9 Convention) with particular reference to grooming both through the internet and by mobile telephones.
Some States have already criminalized grooming in their national legislation.
[edit] Australia
Australian Criminal Code section 218A prohibits the use of electronic communication with the intent to procure a person under the age of 16, or expose such a person to any indecent matter.
[edit] Canada
In Canada, Criminal Code section 172.1 makes it an offence to communicate with a child through a computer system for the purpose of committing a sexual offence (termed "luring a child").
[edit] United Kingdom
In England and Wales, sections 14 and 15 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 make it an offence to arrange a meeting with a child, for oneself or someone else, with the intent of sexually abusing the child. The meeting itself is also criminalized.[3]
The Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005[4] introduced similar provision for Scotland.
Thus, a crime may be committed even without the actual meeting taking place and without the child being involved in the meeting (for example, if a police officer has taken over the contact and pretends to be that child). In R v T (2005) EWCA Crim 2681, the appellant, aged 43, had pretended to befriend a nine-year-old girl, but had done very little with her before she became suspicious and reported his approaches. He had a number of previous convictions (including one for rape) and was described as a "relentless, predatory paedophile". The Court of Appeal upheld a longer than commensurate sentence of eight years' imprisonment with an extended licence period of two years.
[edit] United States
In the United States, US Code Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 117, § 2425 makes it an offence to transmit information about a person below the age of 18 for the purpose of committing a sexual offence. Some states have additional statutes covering seducing a child online, such as the Florida law that makes "Use of a Computer to Seduce a Child" a felony.
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.liberatedfromabuse.com/grooming.html
- ^ Letter agreement dated Oct. 7, 2005, signed by Yahoo! general counsel Michael Callahan
- ^ Act of the U.K. Parliament; Sexual Offences Act 2003, section 15
- ^ Act of the Scottish Parliament; Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005, 2005 asp 9.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- University of Central Lancashire, Cyberspace Research Unit, "Cyber Stalking, Abusive Cyber Sex And Online Grooming: A Programme Of Education For Teenagers" (2004)
- Protecting Children from Sexual Abuse
- Grooming Children for Sexual Molestation, written by Gregory M. Weber, the Assistant Attorney General for the State of Wisconsin who specializes in the prosecution of crimes committed against children.
- How Children Tell About Child Sexual Abuse a study of the disclosure process in over 500 cases including the role of grooming in delaying disclosure
- Child Grooming Could Land You in Jail More on grooming at Liberated From Abuse
- Internet Safety for Kids (A presentation for adults to promote awareness of Internet-based child sexual abuse) Includes materials you can use to present this in your communities.
