According to Russ Tuttle, founder of the Stop Trafficking Project, the technology we give our children to keep them safe, can also lead them to some very dark places.
Tuttle, who is visiting schools in Iola today, said the average age for children to be exposed to pornography is 8 years old. The venue is the internet.
It all comes down to three words, Tuttle said at a forum Monday evening. Exploitation of vulnerabilities. The survivors that we work with, who fit the definition of domestic minor sex trafficking, first encountered pornography online. They go through a grooming process. Conversations turn sexual, then they start sharing naked pictures of themselves online with an adult. Typically it starts with a friend first, but then the friend on social media has another friend. New people come into your social media world and it just keeps getting deeper and deeper.
These pictures are then used against these kids. Predators come into their lives and the kid freaks out because they dont know what to do and then they meet them in person.
Tuttle said when kids are still in elementary school, they are still teachable when it comes to the dangers of the internet, but once they reach middle school age, they are much more vulnerable.
In a community of 332 people, just across the Kansas border, 62 percent of the seniors at the high school had met a complete stranger in person that they had met online, while 98 percent engage in pornography, Tuttle said. The strategy is to come into communities like yours and teach them while they are young. When they get a little older, they know everything and its hard to reach them.
Tuttle said Kansas City was ranked in the top 5% for child sexual assault victims in the nation.
That is comparing us to L.A. and New York. We are in the top 5% in the entire country, here in the good old conservative part of the country, Tuttle said. This means the abuse happened, the crime was reported and the child had a medical exam. So often kids wont even report things like this.
A 2013 study by the University of Arizona found that 14.5% of the male population in Kansas City was online looking to purchase sex.
Well over 80 percent of the ISP numbers they tracked, the text messages, the cell phones they called from, were local. This wasnt some guy coming to town for a Chiefs game. A majority of these guys were local. The demand is high. If kids are being targeted, then lets go inform them they are being targeted, Tuttle said.
Tuttle said kids are most vulnerable in applications like Snapchat, KiK and TicTok.
Snapchat is the No. 1 app for sexting because they feel a reasonable amount of safety. Snapchat says it disappears after six seconds. It may disappear from the device, but there is a thing called screenshot that lets you take a picture of the image, Tuttle said. These pictures in turn can then be used against the child. The child is basically held hostage by these pictures.
Tuttle said to keep a watchful eye on your children when they are online and to talk to them about the dangers of online predators.
Social media is not a joke, he said. One bad decision can ruin your life and watch out for who their online friends are.
