Sexual dangers lurk everywhere in children’s lives

“Harm doesn’t always arrive looking dangerous. Very often, it sits inside relationships of trust, authority, and familiarity,” Rozanne Sack, co-founder of Koleinu SA, a non-profit that combats domestic violence, sexual abuse, and child grooming within the South African Jewish community, said at the Koleinu SA Protecting Childhood Virtual Summit this week. 

“That’s part of what makes recognition, and disclosure, so difficult,” she said. 

Koleinu SA’s School Safe and Teen Safe programmes work in schools to prevent child sexual abuse. “Yet, no single person or programme can create safety alone,” said Koleinu SA co-founder Wendy Hendler. “Protection comes from the entire ecosystem working together, which is why we operate in all the different facets of the community.” 

Sharing his personal experience of a cycle of childhood and teenage abuse, speaker Martin Pelders discussed the often hidden, long-term impact of sexual abuse on boys and men. With common beliefs around sexual abuse centred on female victims and male perpetrators, male victims are often left floundering. Yet, according to a South African 2006 study, 44% of boys across all demographic groups had suffered unwanted sexual contact by the age of 18. 

“My story is different because it doesn’t fit the societal narrative,” said Pelders. “We only have one side of the story, which excludes so many people from seeking healing.” Amid the turmoil he faced, Pelders visited the Rape Crisis Centre, seeking support. Yet there he faced images of women and little girls, with a heavy fist in front of them. “I was astounded because none of it told my story or said to me, as a boy of 16, that I could be a victim in this community,” he said. 

He began examining common narratives around this, which led to him forming Matrix Men in 2011. This non-profit raises awareness and provides support for male survivors of childhood trauma, sexual abuse, and assault. While the laws surrounding sexual abuse are now more equitable, silence about male victims lingers. 

“We must look at how we start changing things and shifting the narrative,” Pelders stressed, “because we’re only trying to fix half the problem. We don’t talk about male survivors of sexual abuse, and men don’t feel we’re allowed to be victims, which keeps us isolated.” He said both boys and girls need to be told, in an age-appropriate manner, about sex and what is and isn’t acceptable. There needs to be space for male victims to come forward. 

Sarah Hoffman, a social media lawyer and co-founder of Klikd, which helps families and schools navigate social media safely, discussed online sexual grooming. Grooming is when an adult develops an inappropriate connection or attachment with a young person with the goal of abusing or exploiting them sexually, she said. About 95% of groomers are people we know and like, with abuse happening in sports clubs, schools, and religious institutions. 

“Similarly, online grooming happens where predators know they have easy access to children,” Hoffman said. That’s why children are particularly vulnerable on online gaming platforms, where they spend considerable time, with their guard down. “Their dopamine – the feel-good hormone – is firing on all cylinders because they’re playing these intense games, and it’s easy to start a conversation that doesn’t seem threatening.” 

While there is a staged approach to grooming both in person and online, it’s often accelerated in online spaces. Here, the predator doesn’t need to spend as long gaining the trust of a child, who thinks they’re speaking to another gamer and therefore feels comfortable. 

“The predator will often target a slightly more vulnerable child, somebody they recognise might be emotionally fragile, with less parental oversight over their devices,” Hoffman said. “The first interactions are pleasant and happen in a public platform before moving to private rooms. Predators compliment kids, establishing some connection, and often buying them gifts in the game. They test boundaries cleverly, asking the child if their parents monitor their devices, and then they isolate the child, deepening the connection they’ve established.” 

That leads to the end goal of sexual exploitation. This is either through sextortion, threatening to distribute naked images of the child and demanding payment not to do so, or in-person sexual abuse. While we may think that children today know better than to send nude images, their brains are still developing and are wired to receive reward in the form of a dopamine hit. Often the risk is the reward, Hoffman explained. “Their brains are like a Ferrari without the brakes.” 

“Today, a child doesn’t even have to send a private image to become a victim of sextortion because of artificial intelligence technology,” she said. All a predator needs is one image of the child to generate a deepfake nude, a fake image that looks real. Parents should therefore avoid sharing pictures of children online and teens on social media should boost privacy settings and have only small follower counts. 

Encourage children to identify a trusted adult as a go-to person if they’re in a dangerous online situation, Hoffman advised. Victims of sextortion should never pay the money and instead should block the predator and secure their accounts. 

“Create joint tech solutions with your children,” she suggested. While boundaries are vital, when your child comes to you to share that abuse has taken place, be curious and not judgemental. “The power of abuse is in the secret, so create an environment that fosters transparency.” 

Hoffman’s partner in Klikd and clinical psychologist, Pam Tudin Buchalter, said that most children are exposed to pornography, usually accidentally, by the age of 11, whether it be in a group chat link or a gaming session. Shame keeps the child from disclosing and the parent from asking. The appeal of porn, she added, often lies in the considerable dopamine fix it provides. 

With repeated exposure, porn becomes the default reference for sex and consent, also changing perceptions around intimacy. This makes it difficult for teens to form real-world relationships and understand what love really looks like. Half of the teens exposed to porn have seen violent content, whether it be depictions of pain or even rape, she said, which can normalise sexual aggression and abuse. 

Parents need to provide a counternarrative, Tudin Buchalter said. Should your child tell you they’ve been exposed to porn, consciously stay calm. Tell them how pleased you are that they came to you and casually ask what they saw and how they interpreted it. 

“Then give an honest, accurate, age-appropriate explanation of what they saw.” Express your family values and teach them that this isn’t what sex is about. 

“Ultimately, no filter or parental control app is foolproof,” Tudin Buchalter explained. “Your child must understand that you’re their safety net and will always be the biggest protective factor in their digital lives. Help them to create the missing tools to augment them in the face of this struggle, giving them cyber intelligence, and building their emotional intelligence and critical thinking.”