What predators look for when you post photos of your children.

Posting seemingly innocent photos of your child or teen has a sinister outcome that you may never have considered.

WARNING: 
THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE CONTAINS ADULT CONCEPTS AND EMOTIONAL TRIGGERS

Your child or teen could be a poster child for a pedophile ring - and you may never know.

Australia made world news in 2016 with a website trading explicit photos of local school girls.   The site even had pages dedicated to local Brisbane and Gold Coast high schools and fan pages - offering money to men who could find more explicit photos of their favourites.

Attempts to close down the site have been thwarted in a brazen disregard of the law.  And these girls, whose images have been used without consent, could be to this day, oblivious.

Police CANNOT ALWAYS LOCATE YOU if photos of your children have been found to be used in connection with pedophile rings.  Due to the ability to mask IP addresses and identities with overseas servers and false identities it is not always possible to link an identity to these photos.  There are even sites dedicated to teaching online predators how to cover their tracks.

A photo of your child could be part of a pedophilia ring that has been uncovered by Police, and you wont even know about it.

The Task Force I worked for busts pedophile rings - and makes arrests of pedophiles in our neighbourhood.  This article is an insight into what they do, and how close to your home they come to arrest offenders.

A pedophile or predator will not play fair, nor think like the average person.  They therefore look at images and their erotic 'potential' differently to how the average population does.

Here are some things that pedophiles may find attractive when looking at photos on social media:

• The obvious stuff - like children in bathers, underwear, having a bath, or in a state of undress.   Even well placed emoticons covering your child's genitals can be photoshopped off and genitals photoshopped back on to increase the 'value' of the photo. You can take me to South Bank beach at Brisbane on any given day and I will be able to point out lone males taking photos of children.... your children.   And yes - Police do patrol this and regularly confiscate cameras and phones.  I have seen it happen meters away from parents and they are completely and utterly oblivious.  The Police do not have to approach the parents, because it is not an element of the offence to have a complainant.  Importantly, there is rarely time in these situations to locate and talk to the parents about what has just happened - Police are too busy dealing with the offender.
• The less obvious stuff that predators find irresistible: like photos that they can alter to make your child or teen look they are part of a sexual act.   These photos can be altered to have a male person in the photo in a state of arousal.  Or they can simply overlay a lewd comment so that the photo becomes a pedophile photo 'meme'.
• Children of social media celebrities.  The more photos posted, and the more coverage the images gain, the more likely they are to come to the attention to pedophile groups and be subjected to their monstrous conversations and attentions.  Similar to a teenage crush of a pop star, these photos become a platform for imaginings, fantasies and lewd behaviours.  The internet has now allowed predators to openly discuss their fetishes, and because they have the support of their monstrous tribe, they now have a place to 'normalise' and 'strategise' dysfunctional thoughts and fantasies.

Things to consider when posting photos of your children:

• Is there enough room to 'superimpose' another figure into the image?*
• Are they in a state of undress (even with emoticons placed modestly - these can be removed and body parts can be photo shopped in).
• Do you have a public social media page?  Pedophiles can develop 'child crushes' and the child does not have to be posed or in a state of undress for the photo to become a commodity.

*  I used to pray that when I saw a photo of a baby in a nappy and a sexually aroused man in the image that the image was 'superimposed'.  I didn't always receive this comfort from the government classifier or the photographic specialists.   This is is the horrific reality of child sex crimes and trafficking in the 21st century.  There is one photo in particular that I remember which causes me pain daily - a 6 month old in just a nappy with the most beautiful angelic smile laying on a bed - and a naked man entering the babies bedroom.   This child looked like my babies - your babies.  And the horror that I could not reach through that screen and save that child scratches at my brain.

Things to be considered with your teens social media images:

1. Duck faces and posed photos are used as baseline trading images on predator sites.
2. Swimwear and underwear shots become more valuable.
3. If their account is public then the predator 'ring' can approach friends (or enemies) of the teen and pay money for more explicit photos.

It has taken over a decade for me to write this post because I know that I will have re-visted images and situations from my career that haunt me.  There was a time when I would physical hit my head and moan to stop the memories - but I hope that I have now developed better coping strategies.   I now have a practice of offering it 'up', or surrender.  I take the time to do a short meditation where I hand the image and the horror over.  This then allows me to focus on the present.   If it re-surfaces I repeat... repeat, repeat repeat - just like my rules of self defence.  Because to submit is not an option for me - or my children.

If you have been affected by this article please make an appointment with your GP.

Or ring lifeline.  Or the sexual assault helpline.

Here are some things you may need to know when reporting sexual abuse.

Empower yourself and your family with an online interactive self defence e-book.
Because self defence isn't something that you had 'wished' you had learned.

Reporting a sexual assault from your past: things that may help

I cannot begin to heal your pain, but I want to give you some practical advice to take away some of the trauma of reporting of something that has happened to you in the past.  It may have been 30 years ago, or a month…. But it will be defined as a ‘historical’ sexual assault when there may no longer be any physical evidence that can be gathered by police.  Physical evidence includes medical evidence collected shortly after the incident, clothing worn (and not washed), photos of injuries, DNA collected from the body and under the fingernails.  Anything from which the offender’s DNA might have been transferred to prove their physical proximity to you.

This then changes the nature of the investigation, but not the outcome in court.  So please don’t worry about this.  Save your energy for healing, ok?

I am all about supporting you as a survivor, and taking you away from the negative connotations of being a victim.  Let my experience as a former sexual assault investigator help you.  I may not know everything, but I want to give you a place to start.  Because I have found everyone is too busy being ‘PC’ and stepping on eggshells that they are ignoring your need for real advice and practical guidance.

So take a deep breath, and let’s get started.

Book in a time of day, get a babysitter, find a room, a coffee shop, a library private reading room.  Write down or audio record your experience.  Don’t leave out your feelings… record sight, sound, smell.  Include EVERYTHING, uncensored and unabashed.  Write like no one will every read or hear it.

After this process then consider what investigators need to know… and consider whether reporting is a process you wish to pursue.

1.  Your relationship to the offender.

You must never feel guilt if you knew and loved your offender.  Never.  It is a misconception that you had to hate your offender and that the offences committed against you where traumatic.  

I have also taken reports when offenders have spoken of ‘love’ and ‘going on a date’ while the offences was being committed.   

Just because what happened to you wasn’t a common storyline that you watch on a TV crime scene show or Hollywood blockbuster does not mean it is not an offence.

And I must also reiterate, that a child in Australia is legally not capable of giving consent to sexual acts.  It is irrelevant whether you told the offender to stop or not.

Guilt and judgement are wasted emotions.  Please do not let this effect the ability for you to report the incident as it happened.  Please do not leave out any details because you fear that it will affect the validity of your experience.

2.  Not all sexual assaults leave physical scarring.

The vagina or rectum does not have to be torn, bleeding or bruised to prove rape.   It is a real option not to resist when you are fearful of the offender (or in the case of multiple offenders).  

3.  Time, date, place.

Recalling the time, date, place is paramount to determine your AGE AT THE TIME OF THE INCIDENT.

At least 1 in 3 sexual assaults occur during childhood.

Let me make this perfectly clear in the most basic English.

If you are under the age of 16 - if you are 15 years or younger - in Queensland, NSW, Victoria or the Northern Territory you cannot consent to sex.  Any sexual act is an offence.  This age rises to 18 in Adelaide and the Northern Territory, and in Adelaide even older if the person is an adult and in a position of authority;  like a priest or teacher.

• 17% of women and 4% of men experienced sexual assault since the age of 15 (Australian Bureau of Statistics -Personal Safety Survey, 2012) 

US statistic

• Females ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.

Looking at these statistics it is no surprise that reporting is often recalling an incidence that happened in childhood or adolescence.   This is when at least 1 in 3 sexual assaults occur.  

It is not uncommon for these assaults to go unreported until the victim is aged 30 years or older (just look at the #metoo campaign).  It is a neurological fact that at around the age of 30 you come into a matured emotional intelligence that comprehends past trauma.

I distinctly remember hanging out clothes when I was about 30 and recalling an incident that happened to me when I was 16, and thinking, ‘WOW, that guy would be arrested now if I reported him.” 

I had been a Police Officer for 10 years by that time, had studied for my detectives appointment, arrested numerous paedophiles and sexual offenders, and had never once looked back on my own adolescence and recounted one of my own experiences as a criminal law offence.  This, coupled with the (unnecessary) emotions of shame and guilt further compound the amnesia state that a teen or young person will experience after a a non-consenstual sexual experience (i.e.: rape).

Such is the nature of our intricate and amazing brains and it’s ability to compartmentalise trauma.

How to recall time, date, place OF EVERY INCIDENT you wish to report is the key to making this process easier.   Particularly if you where a child and had limited ability to correlate times, ages and places.

How do you do this?

Do you remember a special event that happened shortly before or after the incident?  Birthdays, Christmas, Easter, summer holidays? 

Was it a regular occurrence that happened during a particular time of day?  How do you remember?  What images spring to mind that remind you?  What were other people doing at the time?  

4.  Where you under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time?

This is not to weaken your case, but the reverse.  It may account for why you can, or can’t, remember certain things.

How much did you have to drink?  What where you drinking?  What sort of drugs did you take?  How did you take it?  How much?  Over what time period?   Where you also on prescription drugs at the time (very important to consider the effects of drugs taken together).  How did it affect you?

I must also reiterate, depending on the State in Australia where the offence was committed, a person cannot consent to certain sexual acts if they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

This is a vital fact investigators need, both for the investigation but also the possible cross-examination that may occur if the incident was to go to trial.

5.  What did the offender say to you?

If the offender spoke to you before, during, or after the incident, what did they say?  The best way to write it is like this:

He said, “Would you like some cake?”

I said, “No, thank you.... sugar is bad for the tummy.”

6.  What level of penetration occurred.

Whether we are talking about a penis, a finger, or an object, it is vital to explain the level of penetration that occurred. 

Use correct terminology:

• Vagina
•  Labia
• Anus
• Penis
• Testicles

No one died because I wrote that did I?  Everyone will live.

The only thing that dies when we use the term penis and vagina is injustice and sexual dysfunction.

I know it makes people squeamish… but I believe that if we were all a bit more open minded about sex, then this unnecessary shame would not be an issue.

No shame, ok…..  let me be that little voice that reminds you.  No shame.  No guilt.

7.  Consent

'No' means 'No'.

What:

• words 
• actions 

did you use to tell/ show the person that you did not want their actions to continue.

There is a difference between a bad sexual experience, or a sexual experience that you regret, as opposed to proving beyond reasonable doubt to a jury of 12 people that your words and actions showed that no consent was given.

I will reiterate once again, if you were legally incapable of giving consent at the time, for example under the age of 16, or affected by drugs or alcohol to the extent that you are losing consciousness, you are unable to give consent.  Consent is not a factor.  


8.  Have you told someone about what happened to you?

Who, when, how and what happened as a result of the conversation is vital to forming a big picture of the incident. 

Did you write anything down?   Did you have a diary (whether you wrote about it specifically or not, the entries and dates around the time of the incident could paint a very important physiological picture)?  Draw pictures, paint?  What relevance did it have to your situation and the incident?

Remembering special events, places and details – no matter how trivial they may seem to you – can help investigators to paint a greater picture.  You may never understand the relevance, but investigators have many tools that they use to build a case.

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Your head will be spinning by now, so I will give you some space to breath and sit with this information. 

There are only two pure emotions in this world: love and fear.   Anyone who has ever come in contact with you has only ever acted out of one (or both) of these emotions.

I write this from a place of pure love, and a need to surround you with it and whisk away any fear.  No matter what, please believe you are a human BEING, not a human DOING.  BE well, BE safe, BE WHOLE.  Don’t let anyone take that from you, OK?

 ‘And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.’    Marianne Williamson

Teaching children (and adults) to change the world….. www.sweatsystems.com.au