Experts educate parents about online safety
By Vicky Wedig
Editor
When staff at the Association for the Prevention of Family Violence noticed most recent sexual assaults of middle- and high-schoolers had a social media component, they began educating parents about online safety.
The APFV had its first online safety workshop April 26 at Delavan-Darien High School. Four parents attended the English-speaking session of the workshop. The APFV also offered a session for Spanish-speaking parents and one for kids.
Heidi Lloyd, executive director of the APFV, said the organization decided to begin its educational efforts now because April is sexual assault awareness month. She said the common thread of social media in recent sexual assault cases involving middle- and high-school students prompted the effort.
“We have noticed that most of the ones that involve middle school or high school kids involve social media in some way,” she said.
The APFV paired with the Delavan-Darien Community Alliance to offer the session at D-DHS. The Community Alliance is an organization working to raise awareness of poverty in the community. The group meets at 10 a.m. the third Tuesday of the month at Community Action in Delavan.
The APFV started as a task force in 1978 to provide services for victims of domestic violence. It was established in 1979 and continued its mission of combating domestic violence until 2000 when aiding victims of sexual assault was added to its repertoire. The organization is supported through grants and donations, and its services are free, Lloyd said.
When sexual assaults are reported – which accounts for a fraction of the assaults that occur – the APFV sends a counselor to the Tree House to help the victims feel comfortable before undergoing their forensic interviews and to talk with families about services for the victims moving forward.
Sexual assault statistics
Lloyd shared national and local statistics about sexual assault. A person is sexually assaulted every 107 seconds in the United States, she said. Sexual assault is not just sexual intercourse but any touching that is done without a person’s consent and is considered assault whether the victim says no or doesn’t say no but feels intimidated or threatened, she said.
When most people think about sexual assault, they fear strangers and warn their children about “stranger danger,” Lloyd said. But in reality, few sexual assaults are committed by strangers.
“The truth of the matter is that two-thirds of the cases… it was someone they knew,” she said.
Nationally, one in five females and one in 71 males will be sexually assaulted.
“For a girl, 14 is the age she’s most likely to be assaulted,” Lloyd said.
Of the last four cases of sexual assault in Walworth County that the APFV has assisted with, three of the girls were 14 years old, she said. Boys are at greatest risk at 4 years old, Lloyd said.
Last year, the APFV helped 320 victims of sexual assault in Walworth County. Seventy-five percent of them were children including teenagers, Lloyd said.
Nationally, 44 percent of sexual assault victims are 18 years old or younger, and girls 16 to 19 years old are four times more likely to be assaulted than other age groups, she said.
In 93 percent of cases, the perpetrator is someone the victim knows.
“That’s a scary statistic,” Lloyd said.
Perpetrators can be neighbors, Scout leaders or babysitters, she said. Nationally, nearly 55 percent of offenders are 18 to 29 years old. Lloyd said that statistic holds true in Walworth County as well.
Local scenarios
Lloyd shared some local scenarios of sexual assaults that began with the use of social media.
One involved a 14-year-old girl who was very shy and spent a lot of time at home. The girl met someone online and they began texting. The attractive “boy” from Illinois would tell her about his days at school, and eventually asked her to send him a picture of her, Lloyd said. She did, and the “boy” told her she was pretty.
“Eventually, she decided she was in love with this guy,” Lloyd said.
After two months of texting, the pair began Facetiming and ultimately decided to meet in person. He drove up from Illinois and met the girl in a parking lot where they had sex in his car, Lloyd said. Someone saw them in the car and reported it.
It turned out the “boy” was a 26-year-old man with a criminal history in Illinois whose tales of his days at school were fabricated.
“It’s a very sad story,” Lloyd said. “After all the lies, she still thought she loved him.”
In another case in Walworth County, a popular senior boy texted a shy freshman girl and invited her to a party, Lloyd said. When she got to the “party,” only three boys were there, and they began drinking shots of alcohol, she said. Only the girl, who had never had alcohol before, was given twice as many shots as the boys, and all three of them had sex with her, Lloyd said.
“It is really, really sad,” she said. “If it wasn’t for her using social media, they wouldn’t have hooked up that night.”
In another case, co-workers of a 15-year-old girl’s father frequently came to the girls’ home for barbecues and beers with her father, and one of the men became a friend of the family. He began casually texting the girl, and soon the text messages became more personal, Lloyd said. He began to tell the girl how pretty she is, and eventually asked her to come over for a beer. She did, and, at first, they were talking and having a good time. But, then the man told the girl he loved her and forced himself on her, Lloyd said.
Social media’s role
Everyone – adults and kids – wants to have a cell phone, Lloyd said, but parents have to consider whether the phone is a friend or foe for their children. They should be wary of texting, chat rooms, dating apps and “sexting.”
She said dating apps might seem like a good idea to teenagers who want to meet other kids their age. But, often they find the people they meet are not teenagers.
“Sexting” refers to sending naked pictured to someone, which adults are often able to lure teens into doing, Lloyd said.
“It is amazing to me how many adult men convince teenage girls and boys to send them pictures,” she said.
Among the myths than teens might hold about sexting is that “everybody’s doing it,” so it’s not a big deal, Lloyd said. She said if everyone were doing it, many more cases of child pornography would be charged. She said children sending naked pictures of themselves is child pornography, and the men receiving the images would be charged if they were discovered.
Girls often say they send nude pictures because the boy wanted proof that she loved him, Lloyd said.
Lloyd gave a list of websites and apps that are OK – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. She said Facebook is safe, but kids don’t use it anymore. They consider it an app for their parents and grandparents, she said.
Instagram and Twitter are OK, she said, if parents lock their children’s profiles. Many inappropriate videos surface on Twitter, however, she said.
Apps that are risky and not recommended are Kik, OkCupid, Tinder, MeetMe, Tumblr, Snapchat, Omegle.com, Ask.fm, Backpage, Skout, Craigslist.com, Yik Yak and Vine.
Kik offers free texts that don’t show on the user’s phone, so parents aren’t able to monitor their children’s use, Lloyd said.
OkCupid is a free online dating app that Lloyd tried out posing as a teen.
“Five minutes of lies, and you get a sea of shirtless men, some in bed,” she said.
The app also tells who is nearby, revealing teenagers’ locations to potential predators.
Tinder is also a dating app that has a teen section, but it’s easy to pretend to be older with a fake Facebook profile, Lloyd said.
MeetMe is a site known for sexual predators, Lloyd said. Snapchat is an app that many teens think is OK for sending photos because they disappear, but Lloyd said it’s easy for someone to take a screenshot of the photo with permission or take a photo of it with another cell phone.
Tumblr is known for blogging for teens, and initially seems attractive because users can get creative and personalize their profile, but the site is public and contains a lot of pornography, Lloyd said. It also glamorizes risky behavior like smoking marijuana, unprotected sex and multiple partners.
Lloyd said Omegle.com is video-based and anonymous and advertises “Talk to strangers!” and Ask.fm is also anonymous and known for bullying.
Backpage is an internet classified ad section known for prostitution and sexual predators.
Skout is a flirting app, and Craigslist.com has been associated with hook-ups, robberies and even murders, she said.
Yik Yak also is anonymous and known for cyber-bullying and explicit content, Lloyd said. Vine is a site that features six-second video clips that began with a lot of funny, clever content but now has a lot of nudity and marijuana-smoking images.
Parents’ role
Lloyd said parents should educate themselves, teach kids to protect their identities and strengthen the privacy settings on all the devices their kids use – even for “good kids.” She said good students are not exempt from becoming victims of sexual assault.
“We see straight A students as often as we see the kids who are not going so well in school,” she said.
Lloyd recommended the website commonsensemedia.org that gives information about the social media apps that are out there and their dangers. The site also gives instructions for adjusting privacy settings.
Lloyd stressed that monitoring children’s devices is not violating their privacy.
“It’s not spying,” she said. “It’s watching out for someone you love.”
