A mother in Longueuil, Que. is speaking out after a strange man tried to meet up with her 13-year-old daughter after receiving a message from him on Instagram. The conversation started with some flirtation. “I just turned 18,” he says. “You?” then adds, “Let me guess, 16?” She responds, “I’m too young for you.” And he guesses again: “14?” She then tells him she is 13. He continues to pursue her, sending her suggestive pictures and asking her to come over to his place alone. “What are we going to do?” she asks. “Spend a bit of time together to start, and after, we can improvise if you want,” he says. “What do you want to do?” “I don’t know,” she says. “Come over later, and we’ll figure it out,” he responds. Sensing something wasn’t right, the girl showed the messages to her mom, Gabrielle, whose last name is not being published to protect her child’s identity. The mother then called the police. Longueuil police say they might open an investigation, and the only advice they gave the family was to block the man on Instagram and have a conversation about online safety. It’s an all too common story, according to Jacques Marcoux, director of research and analytics at the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. He said the problem is that the onus is put on parents and not the online platforms. “These platforms are somewhat like trojan horses into the lives of our kids. and that’s really dangerous because there’s no world in which a parent would let someone knock on the door at night on your home and go upstairs and hang out with your child,” he said. “But with social media … this is kind of what happens.” In the last six years, he says the centre has received thousands of sextortion reports from Canadian children, but believes it’s likely a fraction of what’s really going on. “The vast majority of kids, unfortunately, in these types of crimes have never come forward at all,” Marcoux said. He says it’s important to report these incidents which will put pressure on Canada to take action to better protect children online. “There has to be guardrails in place that require companies to do better,” he added. Gabrielle is grateful her daughter spoke up and she’s now speaking out to prevent this from happening to others.
