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MP speaks about child luring

By Faith Anderson

ST. BONIFACE — Keynote speaker Shelley Glover, MP for St. Boniface, spoke on child luring on the Internet at the St. Boniface CWL convention April 17. Until being elected in 2008, Glover served 19 years on the Winnipeg Police Force, four of them in the child abuse unit. She is very much engaged in putting forward legislation to fight these heinous crimes.

“Women will be the driving force to make a difference in many of these children’s lives,” she said.

Glover identified key areas that people need to be aware of, including email, usenet groups (discussion groups where images can be posted) and chat rooms, where childrencan talk to another person without images. On the Internet, children are exposed to inappropriate sexual material, some of it violent in nature. There is also a danger of physical molestation, as strangers who pretend to be children are actually adults who encourage children to meet with them. Harassment, bullying and luring are other dangers children are being exposed to.

Parents can monitor computer use by making sure their child is in sight, Glover suggested. They can discuss the risks and use filtering programs to block inappropriate websites. Parents should know their children’s passwords, be a part of their group — Facebook, for example — and limit time spent on the computer. Glover stressed that children should never provide their full name, date of birth or address when using the Internet.

Glover cited Bill C-15A, which received royal assent in 2002, an act to amend the Criminal Code and extended the offence of possessing and distributing child pornography to include accessing child pornography.

Bills C-46 and C-47, which have been introduced, will give police officers authority to obtain email information from Internet providers. Glover explained that the police need a tool to gain access to email addresses that are used inappropriately

Bill C-58, when reintroduced, will mean the mandatory reporting of online child pornography.

Bill C-34 deals with the sex offender registry. Glover noted that, currently, police cannot access the sex offender registry until a crime is committed, and then the information is limited. the proposed change will allow police to access the registry before a crime is committed and place vehicle information into the registry, allowing the tracing of sex offenders across borders.

Glover provided three websites that can be used to report crimes: cybertip.ca, a Canadian Internet tip line; bewebaware.ca, a bilingual tip line; and Internet 101.ca, which is administered by the RCMP.