Grooming of minors by paedophilic adults seems to be an overlooked yet pressing societal anomaly, especially with children's increased access to the internet. Despite their fair share of boons, social media platforms and messaging apps harbour a safe haven for predators that prey on innocent victims and exploit their trust in the most sinister ways. We have periodically seen incidents happen across Bangladesh that raise concern over this issue.

Grooming is a calculated process through which predators establish emotional connections with minors, often masquerading as a friend, mentor or admirer. Through the art of deception and sophisticated manipulation tactics, the child—who, more often than not, is a female—is moulded to be a puppet, dancing to the tunes of the puppet-master, driving the child to think and act in ways that serve the evil purpose of her groomer—usually male. The defenceless victim is made to believe that her predator is a chivalrous knight in shining armour, saving her, the damsel in distress, from difficult circumstances with the purest of intentions. These predicaments could be the feeling of being unloved at home due to the birth of a younger sibling or due to parents' outbursts, anger management issues, and harsh punishment methods. They can also be the feeling of inadequacy at school or deep-rooted insecurities, the feeling of loneliness due to not having friends as a result of being a victim of bullies, etc, all of which are significant challenges in a child's life, making them more vulnerable and therefore an easy target.

In most cases, victims are led to believe that they are engaging in consensual relationships, often under false promises of marriage. The victim is made to keep the predator's paedophilic conduct a secret, because the world will supposedly conspire against them and tear them apart. In other cases, these deviants may threaten or gaslight their victims into silence who are unable to recognise the abuse for what it is. Since minors cannot legally consent, such exploitation constitutes a grave violation of their rights. Tragically, many victims don't come forward due to fear, shame or trauma, allowing the cycle of abuse to continue unchecked.

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Plight of street children still ignored

It is high time for parents to take an active role in protecting their children from the predators that lurk in the shadows of a virtual realm, and this can only be ensured through frank, open, and non-judgemental communication, giving children a safe space to share uncomfortable encounters and educating them on the dangers of interacting with strangers on the internet. Needless to say, implementing reasonable restrictions on the usage of social media and signing them up for after-school programmes and extracurricular activities or helping them pick up new hobbies can help mitigate exposure to potential threats.

Instead of focusing on symptomatic treatment, it is important to eliminate the root cause of the ailment itself. These are medical terms, but I like to view the crisis as an epidemic. Sustainable change would require changing systems. Stakeholders would need to partner up to make changes in policies, procedures and existing social structures. This would necessitate a commitment to eliminating obstacles that come in the way of the well-being of pre-teens and teenagers who are prone to becoming prey to predators. It is important for stakeholders to empathise with children who have been through the ordeal, and to be aware that something has gone fundamentally wrong for some children to have been pushed into a scary rabbit hole. It would require competence to assess problematic patterns, based on qualitative and quantitative data as well as through observation, that have led to this crisis. These sensibilities will allow advocates to initiate a journey towards common, action-oriented goals. The co-labouring process of stakeholders will also allow the identification of the loopholes in the school system and curriculum, so that immediate preventive measures can be taken.

During goal-setting, perhaps the following can be taken into consideration: i) schools should integrate age-appropriate education on cybersecurity, consent, grooming awareness, etc into the curriculum; ii) the education ministry can source materials (printed or audio-visual) on the topic, which schools can use effectively; iii) stakeholders should plan and execute campaigns at school premises, which must include the involvement of parents, e.g. organising workshops for parents, where they are educated on how to speak to children about predators and how to detect the red flags; and iv) regular monitoring of the effect of the implemented programmes can be done through feedback loops from teachers, parents, and student surveys conducted by school authorities.

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Bring all the rapists to book

We must stop pointing fingers at child victimsand shaming them, which worsens the problem by enabling paedophiles and predators. In fact, when we as a society shift the blame to the reprehensible groomers, victims will feel less ashamed or afraid to report their abusers. Survivors may then have the courage to speak as ambassadors at school premises, during various awareness campaigns. Besides punishing the perpetrators to ensure justice, it is important to root out the problem through the joint efforts of parents, educators, school administrators, the education ministry, other stakeholders, and the community at large, so that together, we can build a protective environment where children can grow without the looming threat of exploitation.

Noora Shamsi Bahar is senior lecturer at the Department of English and Modern Languages, North South University (NSU), and a published researcher and translator.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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