AMMAN —
Specialists are warning parents to tighten control over their children who
could be exposed to pornographic material on the Internet, specifically social
networking sites.
اضافة اعلان
Young Jordanians
of different backgrounds opt for the internet as their main source of
information. Many are also active on social media sites, like Facebook and
TikTok.
Social
Development Specialist Mohammed Basharat said that accessing pornographic
material “is particularly sensitive and dangerous for the society, and
specifically children.”
“Homes and
individuals are being targeted, especially since most children use smart
devices on a daily basis, and some of them may be out of parental control,” he
told
Jordan News.
He explained that
“there are disgraceful and flawed acts seen by children on several available
applications, which may present sensual content, or have sexual implications.”
“Visual
pornography also promotes children’s sexual expression,” he pointed out.
“The most
significant harm this content has on children is its impact on their mental and
physical health, and its effect on their cognition, sexual, and intellectual
development,” he said.
He also said that
“the child’s exposure to explicit content may continue to maturity, and may
leave him or her in a bad state as a result of continuous exposure to such
activity or scenes.”
In turn, he
added, this may “bring them closer to sexual perversion, or make it easier for
them to accept sexual harassment.”
According to
Basharat, 31 percent of males and 18 percent of females “may actually practice
what they have seen in such content.”
He noted that
“extensive exposure to explicit content affects one’s perception of women in
general.”
Among those risks are cyber-bullying, sexual harassment and exploitation, brainwashing, instilling concepts of violence and hatred, immorality and lack of religion, addiction to explicit content, defiance, and death,
“Children will
have poor sexual development and their brain will be adversely affected,” he
noted.
Internet
consultant Hana Al-Ramli said that there are many serious risks which children
face as a result of their exposure to explicit content online.
“Among those
risks are cyber-bullying, sexual harassment and exploitation, brainwashing,
instilling concepts of violence and hatred, immorality and lack of religion,
addiction to explicit content, defiance, and death,” she told
Jordan News.
Ramli said the
types of explicit content to which a child is exposed to “vary”, and “not only
includes content found on explicit sites”.
She believed that
“the most dangerous of which is the content sent to children by strangers
through social media platforms and electronic games.”
“Strangers may
photograph themselves naked and send these pictures to the child. In addition,
it is also possible that children would be photographed naked or open a video
chat with strangers to display their bodies under threat or blackmail”, she
explained.
She said that
“boys and girls sending personal videos to each other, for the purpose of
entertainment, is dangerous too.”
According to
Ramli, “the child, who is exposed to inappropriate content, must be given the
opportunity to acknowledge the source of his access to this content, whether it
is an advertisement, a mistaken entry to the site, or someone sending him a
link or video with such content.”
“It is important to
remind parents to avoid any scolding or punishment on the child, as this will
prevent them in the future from talking to their parents on such matters,” she
explained.
She said punishment
may also prevent children from “seeking help, if they are exposed to any
pornographic content, blackmail, or sexual bullying on the Internet”.
As for the role
of the school, she stressed that “the majority of schools do not adopt an
awareness-raising approach to the culture of using the Internet, including
explicit content, on children.”
Farah Al-Baddawi,
a teacher at a private school, told
Jordan news that “in one incident,
two students were caught watching explicit content inside the school.”
She said that “in
such cases, the school communicates with the children’s parents to let them
know about the incident, so that the matter is dealt with on a scientific and
educational basis aimed at correcting the problem and not aggravating it.”
She advised
parents to continuously cooperate with schools to create a healthy environment
for children in homes and schools and to protect them from the dangers of
digital explicit content.
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