Sin Chew Daily

The internet has brought unrivaled convenience to our day-to-day lives, opening up windows of opportunities for us to take a peek into the vast world.

At the same time, the internet also offers superlative convenience for irresponsible individuals to prey on their victims, in particular underage minors.

Sin Chew Daily recently did an exclusive report on an adult website set up by Malaysians to entice underage boys and girls to indulge in sex games. The instances exposed so far are only tip of the iceberg, and it has become a very serious issue for irresponsible people to seduce minors to fall into their traps with the help of the convenience of internet.

Our whole society must look at this matter seriously and take the necessary actions to stop similar incidents from taking place again so as to prevent more children from falling prey to their wicked motives.

A UNICEF study reveals that 51.7% of children in Southeast Asia admitted to have received explicit content on the internet, including messages, photographs and videos. 7.6% of the correspondents said they had been asked to provide images and videos of their private parts.

Apparently, minors have been specifically targeted by online sex predators.

Parents are the most important protectors of children. They must therefore shoulder the responsibility of leading their children away from the traps set up on the internet. All parents want their children out of harm's way, but unfortunately some are still unable to adapt to changes in the internet era, causing them to become negligent, thus allowing the predators to seize the opportunity to take on their young preys.

It is extremely easy for children to access the internet in our highly wired world today. They can gain access to all sorts of information poised to significantly broaden their scope of vision.

As mentioned earlier, this has also opened up the Pandora's box, tempting the children to click the dubious leading to undesirable content that will have a negative impact on the child's growth.

As such, parents cannot afford to stick to the old ways of teaching their kids. They must adapt to the new internet age and take on the many challenges that come with ubiquitous internet availability.

Sure enough it is impossible to completely ban the children from accessing the internet, but at least they can guide their children to surf the net safely so as not to fall into the traps.

While parents must open the protective umbrellas, the government should also do its part by legislating and enforcing more stringent laws against online sex. MCMC has from 2015 to July this year worked with PDRM and Interpol to shut down a total of 405 websites offering pedophile and child sex contents.

Of course, given the sheer size of the internet, it is impossible for the government to fully monitor social media and website contents. Members of the public must extend their cooperation by reporting any indecent content in a bid to protect our children.

It is our shared responsibility to insulate our kids from toxic pornographic content.