[ OUR OPINION ]
HAWAII'S remoteness affords children no extra protection from Internet predators, as many parents have discovered. A federally funded foundation will begin conducting workshops tomorrow for teachers in Hawaii's Catholic schools to help students avoid such dangers and will extend the program to public schools later this year. Parents remain their children's most vital guardians against cyberspace predators. Kids need cyberhelp
from parents, teachers
THE ISSUE A private organization is beginning to help parents, teachers and children become 'responsible cyber citizens.'
Many parents were shocked last year to learn that a 31-year-old Kalihi man had lured a 14-year-old girl from Oregon for sex. Police arrested him after she had arrived at his apartment, and he was sentenced to three years in federal prison earlier this year.
Hawaii's children are just as vulnerable as their peers on the mainland. Honolulu police Detective Chris Duque, an Internet crime specialist, tells of a 14-year-old Oahu boy being enticed by a man in his late 30s into engaging in oral sex at the boy's home while his parents were out of town. He tells of a 13-year-old Kauai girl being lured into having sex with a 34-year-old man at his hotel room. And he tells of far too many other reports of teenagers being entrapped in perilous situations as a result of online chats.
I-Safe America focuses on children in grades 5 through 8 in trying to equip parents, educators and children to become "responsible cyber citizens" and "cyber street-smart." The foundation teaches children how to avoid predators while alerting teachers and parents to the online minefields.
"In the vast majority of cases where the child has been victimized, the parents are completely clueless," Duque told the Star-Bulletin's Susan Essoyan. "In the other cases, the parents know they should have monitored the kid, but they felt, 'Well, it couldn't happen to my child.'"
Parents should make no such assumptions. A national survey published last year found that one in every five 10-to-17-year-olds using the Internet had received unwanted sexual solicitation during the previous year. However, only one-fourth of those solicited children told their parents and only 10 percent reported the incidents to teachers or other authority figures. Half of them didn't even tell friends.
Children's candor to parents and teachers about their travels through cyberspace is critical in preventing disastrous collisions. Among I-Safe's most important tips to parents is to learn as much as they can about the Internet, keep the computer in an open area and talk with their children about their Internet use. A good place to start is the foundation's Web site: www.isafe.org
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