Many foster parents are concerned about the phenomenon of “stranger danger,” or meeting a child predator or adult who is looking to claim the child as a
victim, bringing harm to the foster child. As more foster children turn to online technology and social networking for entertainment, communication, and
escape, the number of foster children that are being placed in harm’s way via the internet is increasing.
It is difficult to correctly profile today’s online sexual predator. In the early part of the twenty first century, the sexual predator may look like the neighbor next
door, the doctor in town, the co-worker in your building, the owner of the successful business. Sexual predators come from all races, all nations, and all socio-
economic situations. Generally, the average age of the sexual predator is over the age of twenty five, male, and acting alone, often times from the comfort of
his own home, as he seek out helpless children online.
These predators believe that they will not get caught, as the internet offers them a high degree of anonymity. Indeed, these predators feel that they can sit
behind a computer, hidden from the outside world, and contact their victims without being traced. Along with this, these online predators can create different
identities; identities that do not seem threatening to their victims, giving the predators easier access to their victims.
To be sure, the internet has made it much easier for an online predator to contact his victim. Before the advent of online communities and the digital world,
child predators often had to lurk in parks, dark corners, and on the streets at night waiting for a potential victim. In today’s online world, an online predator can
search for their victims through social network sites, luring them into danger from the comfort and security of the predator’s home. “Pedophiles are finding
new ways and new opportunities to network with each other on how to exploit children,” according to one U.S. Attorney. “Young girls who are innocently
posting very personal information, or their identities, on these sites are setting themselves up for disaster,” One report found that 65% of online sex offenders
found out home and school information from the victim's social networking site, and 82% used the victim’s social networking page to find out about the victim’
s likes and dislikes.
The number of children being contacted by sexual predators online is disturbing and astounding at the same time. Approximately one out of every seven
children is sexually contacted, or solicited, by a predator while online. Furthermore, many of these children are seriously pursued online by these predators,
singling out these children in an attempt to lure them in.
Foster Children and Sexual Predators
Foster children can be particularly vulnerable to sexual predators. Foster children often experience higher levels of anxiety than other children, and this can
manifest itself in a number of ways. Perhaps the one that foster children face the most is separation anxiety, an excessive concern that children struggle with
concerning the separation from their home, family, and to those they are attached to the most. Indeed, the more a child is moved, from home to home, from
foster placement to another foster placement, or multiple displacements, the bigger the concern becomes. Those children who undergo many multiple
displacements often times create walls to separate themselves in an attempt to not let others into their lives. (DeGarmo, 2013-The Foster Parenting Manual,
JKP). To be sure, this type of anxiety and insecurity can make them vulnerable to sexual predators, as children in foster care search for love.
More than anything, a foster child wishes one thing and has one desire; to be loved. As foster parents, we can protect the child from harm, provide a safe and
secure home, offer nutritious meals, and open up a doorway of opportunities for foster children, granting them new and exciting experiences that they may
never have dreamed of. Yet, with all of this, with all of the wonderful opportunities and safe environments, foster children really crave love the most. They
want to be loved. After all, every child deserves to be loved. Not only do children deserve love, they need it in order to grow in a healthy fashion. While there
are many forms of love, the strongest one, and most important for a foster child, is that of unconditional love. Sadly, many children in foster care either do not
receive this love at all, or receive it too late, after too much emotional damage has been done.
Unconditional love is simply being loved without restrictions or stipulations. For a foster child who may have been abused, beaten, or neglected, this type of
love is most important. Without this type of love, a foster child will not form necessary and healthy attachment with others, resulting in a number of attachment
disorders. Foster children who suffer from these disorders will have great difficulty connecting with others, as well as managing their own emotions, not only
during their childhood and time in foster care, but many times throughout the remainder of their lives. Emotional difficulties such as a of lack of self worth,
trust, and the need to be in control often result in the lack of unconditional and healthy parental love. As anyone who has worked with foster children will tell
you, most foster children face an enormous amount of emotional issues, many times stemming from the lack of healthy love. For those foster children who
have been abused in some way in the past, they may be more likely to show inappropriate sexual behaviour, or seek out love in appropriate places,
Consequently, they may seek out such sexual content and relationships through online means.
Sexual Exploitation of Children
Sadly, the search for love for many children in foster care leads to a road of sexual exploitation. Foster children often are in need of love, yet do not know what
a healthy and loving relationship is. With no one to show them early in their lives what true unconditional or healthy loving relationships are, children in foster
care mistakenly seek it out, often times online. What many foster parents do not know, though, is how easy it is for foster children to encounter sexual
predators online. These sexual predators know that foster children are particularly vulnerable to this kind of assault.
Human Trafficking
Every year, millions of children across the globe are victims of human trafficking. These commercially sexually exploited children generally fall victim to human
trafficking through several methods; threat, force, recruitment, coercion, abduction, or deception. Of these, roughly a million are trafficked into the global sex
industry each year. The average age a child enters, or is forced, into being a child prostitute is between the years of 12-14, with the majority of them being
females, or young girl. Many times, these children are found through online methods, through social networking. Not only are these children moved, or
trafficked, across state line, but across country borders, as well. Disturbingly, there is a great demand across the world for child prostitutes, children
exploited for sexual reasons, and much of the demand is behind the high numbers of children being trafficked each year.
Children who fall victim to the sexual exploitation of human trafficking tend to come from several different backgrounds. They may be runaways, like
Alexandra; victims of prior sexual abuse; homeless; children looking to belong and hoping to find acceptance; or children who have been victimized in other
fashions and are seeking love and a sense of belonging. Indeed, human traffickers may target large facilities, such as large foster care group homes, where they
are able to locate a greater number of children who are defenseless, vulnerable, and hurting, thus easier targets to victimize, lure, and exploit.
Child traffickers are also looking towards the internet to find their victims, as well. Recently in the state I live in, I read of a group of traffickers who were
luring young women and girls through online contact from neighboring southern nations to the United States, with the promise of a better life. Once these
young women and girls arrived, they were forced into a prostitution ring, with many of the girls being forced to performing sexual acts with up to 30 men per
day.
Children in foster care may be the most vulnerable children at risk for human trafficking across the globe. As these children in need often come from
environments of physical and sexual abuse, neglect, and poverty, they may feel that sexual abuse is normal, and easily succumb to those predators who are out
their luring them into their fold. Sadly, in many third world nations, the foster care system is one that offers little hope or protection for these children. As a
result, many of these foster children fall through the cracks, so to speak, and are easily lost in a system that never really provided a safe environment to begin
with. For those foster children who age out of the system in many poverty stricken nations, surrendering to lure of false promises from child traffickers is
more appealing than the realities they may face with homelessness on dangerous streets.
Owner/Editor - Chris Chmielewski