‘Pre-offence’ Net abuse of child a crime

Soon the Net will become safer for your child. The Government has accepted a parliamentary panel’s suggestion that pre-offence “grooming” over the Net should be made a criminal offence.

Soon the Net will become safer for your child. The Government has accepted a parliamentary panel’s suggestion that pre-offence “grooming” over the Net should be made a criminal offence.

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Several countries, including the UK, US and Australia, have already criminalised online “grooming” — a term to describe Internet predators communicating with children online to gain their trust, breaking down their defences and then manipulating them into real-life sexual encounters.

The Department of Information Technology has also promised to consider making the sharing of information about websites for downloading pornography a criminal offence. A common strategy to lead children to believe that it was all right to expose themselves was to show them movies and images of other children indulging in sexual acts.