Each tenth child who uses Internet received indecent proposals online at least once, study
- 08.02.2012 11:26
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- 3 minute(s)
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Each tenth child who got acquainted with persons from other counties over the Internet received indecent proposals at least once, shows a study made by the International Center for the Protection and Promotion of Women’s Rights “La Strada”. It is worrisome that when such proposals are made to them and they discuss online subjects of sexual character, the children do not inform their parents about this, “La Strada” director Ana Revenko told a news conference.
The study covered a sample of 1 347 children who use the Internet. They are aged between 12 and 16 and are from 59 settlements of the country, Info-Prim Neo reports.
According to the study, the online proposals made to children by persons from other countries referred to the exchange of personal photos (23%), exchange of contacts (22%), having a meeting (21%), and indecent suggestions (7%). Four of ten of the polled children said they exchanged personal data with persons with whom they got acquainted over the Internet. Each third child sent his own photos, while each seventh child sent personal video recordings.
Five of ten children said they met at least once with persons with whom they communicated over the Internet. These are mainly girls aged 15-16 from rural areas. The study also shows that in 48% of the cases the persons with whom the children met were of the same age as they, in 43% of the cases were aged 16-20, in 4% – 21-25, while in 4% – 26-38.
Most of the children spend by 3-4 hours in front of the computer, each seventh child - 5-6 hours, while each 17th child – 7-8 hours continuously between 10pm and 8am.
The largest number of children use the Internet to visit social networking sites, look for information for the homework, see videos and films, use the web camera, etc. 2/3 of the questioned children prefer to communicate with their siblings over the Internet rather than in real life. The children from rural areas visit mainly such websites as www.odnoklassniki.ru and www.facebook.com, while those from urban areas - www.formspring.com and www.vkontakte.ru.
The specialists of “La Strada” recommend the parents to be present in the room where the children access the Internet and discuss with them the serious consequences of the Internet. The Center also advises the Ministry of Education to include a class on the safe use of the Internet in the school curriculum.
