In May 2001, Children's Express reporters teamed up with Sky News to produce four films on key election issues as seen from the perspectives of the next generation of voters. The films included challenging interviews with the three main party leaders: Charles Kennedy, William Hague and Tony Blair. This article is adapted from the second in the series, on Internet safety.
| It’s only recently, since there’ve been other cases, that I’ve actually realised how much danger I could have been in. |
It's supposed to be harmless fun. Enter an Internet chat room and make new on-line friends.
But Georgie, 14, knows it can lead to extreme danger. She developed a special on-line relationship with a boy who claimed to be eighteen. What she didn't know when she agreed to meet him, was that he was actually a man in his forties. Luckily her parents insisted on going with her.
"It's only recently, since there've been other cases, that I've actually realised how much danger I could have been in," Georgie said. "It's quite scary at the moment. I think before I was just upset and it took a while for it to actually sink in what had happened."
The man who approached Georgie was arrested but never charged. He couldn't be - he hadn't broken the law. Georgie is still angry about that.
"You know, there's nothing stopping him from just going out and doing it again to someone else."
 Lured by a liar - Georgie didn't realise her online boyfriend was old enough to be her father. | |
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But she has learned enough from the experience to offer this advice to other young chatroom users: "Mostly just not to give out your personal details, anything like name or address. People are really clever and they can use any little bit of information that you give them."
Over 4 million children have access to the Internet. At least one in five of them have been approached by paedophiles in chat rooms.
Go searching through teen chat rooms on the Internet for teen chat rooms, and while plenty are innocent, plenty more have titles that could easily attract dodgy characters or create the wrong impression. Chat rooms like "Naughty teens" and "Hot, wet and wild teens" don't leave much to the imagination.
| | What the reporters said | | Benjamina: "I'm don't really think it's going to get safer. It's going to take a lot of years for it to happen, and I don't think any of what the Labour or the Conservatives are saying are going to change this happening." | | Zak: "Once I saw what it was, what could happen when we saw the cases, I really started to think, why am I using these kind of things?" | |
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It seems the only thing that can protect young people on the Internet for now is their own common sense.
Children online
By the end of the year, every child will have Internet access, even though it remains an insecure place for children and young people. But Tony Blair says Labour is tackling the issue.
"Well it's a big problem this," he agreeed. "There's a government task force at the moment that's looking into how we make sure that we deal with these sort of chat room things and you know, the abuses of the Internet that go on."
The taskforce has the support of the Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy: "I think it's a good idea and I think that the government have been critical of Jack Straw as Home Secretary. I think on this one he deserves support."
William Hague says the Conservatives will also make dealing with Internet perverts a priority
"Unless paedophiles actually go on to assault the child, there's nothing in the law that we can do about that," he said. "So I think we do need to change the law, and we've already asked the government to change the law, and if we were in government we would change the law to make it stronger against paedophiles misusing the Internet."
 Charles Kennedy welcomes government plans for an Internet taskforce | |
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But Charles Kennedy says changing the law won't be enough. "It's not just something that you can tackle at a national level, country level. It's got to be tackled at an international level because of the nature of the technology involved."
And while the problem remains unsolved, children like Tony Blair's own daughter can log on and check out chat rooms like "Younger girls for older men."
"Of course it worries me," said the Labour leader and father of four. "And we try and look very carefully at what our children are doing on the Internet. You wouldn't thank me if you couldn't get in and use the Internet. On the other hand we need to try and put some limits and rules and regulations that prevent it being abused. But getting that balance right is quite hard."
About the team
This article is based on the Future Voters film presented by Benjamina Avro-Owiriwa, and Zak Garner-Purkis, 13. Produced by Chris Rogers and Children's Express. It was broadcast on Sky News.
Other stories in the series:
Future Voters: Crime
Future Voters: The Internet
Future Voters: Global Warming
Future Voters: Teacher Shortages
