Okaz

There are lessons that need to be learned in order to protect our children.

IN a recent incident, a 15-year-old boy was given first aid and then rushed to hospital after a failed suicide attempt.

Everyone was shocked. They started asking what made the boy to attempt suicide at this young age. Was he bullied at school? Was it the Blue Whale game? Was it drugs? Or was it something else? What did the father discover?

Before I answer what led to the boy’s suicide attempt, let us get familiar with the danger of smartphones to minors. Many families are careless and neglect the danger posed by smartphones to their children. Smartphones could become the means to drive youngsters to suicide or to a scandal.

Smartphones allow minors to interact with the outside world through social networking sites such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and many other applications. In the cyber world, there are hard-core criminals and wolves that hide behind their virtual identity. These criminals prey on minors, exploit them and expose them to many hazards. Some of these include bullying, luring them, gathering information about their family, extortions, sexual abuse, exposure to drugs and using them as drug carriers.

Back to the story of the young boy, did the reader figure out what was the reason behind his suicide attempt? At the beginning, the boy refused to talk to anyone because he was in a very bad psychological condition. The father then examined his son’s cell phone quickly. He was shocked and became hysterical. Everyone was surprised by the behavior of the father while they tried to calm him down. The father could not believe what he saw on the phone. He discovered that his son was a victim of sexual harassment and he was photographed. How did this human wolf managed to prey on this innocent boy?

The boy was talented and he loved photography. He had a wish to become famous one day. He was posting his photos on Instagram and Twitter. This human wolf contacted him through Twitter using a fake account and asked him whether the photos were his own. The boy answered yes. The human wolf then told the boy that he was interested in his photos, but asked him first to prove that they were indeed his. He asked the boy to take a photo of his room and send it to him on his WhatsApp number in five minutes. He told the boy that if he proved that this was his photo, then he could help promote his account on social media, claiming that he has many followers. The human wolf used the boy’s passion for photography to get his personal information, including his phone number.

The boy sent the photo to the man’s mobile phone, but he committed the biggest mistake by revealing his phone number to a stranger, who now has a direct contact with him.

The human wolf did not fulfill his promise of promoting the boy’s account and asked for more time to do a good campaign for him. The relationship evolved over time and he started to send porn materials to the boy on his cell phone. He then asked the boy to take indecent photos of himself. The man then started encouraging the boy to sexually harass his relatives. He tried to lure the boy to an isolated location, but he could not. At the end, the boy slipped into a bad mental state after the man started blackmailing him. This led him to attempt suicide.

Every time the boy was in contact with this human wolf, he was inside his house. Dear reader, do you now realize the hidden danger of smartphones? What do you think of this case? Do you support anti-harassment legislation or support severe punitive measures? Most of the people will ask for both, because of the gravity of this act. Some people will go to the extreme and call for the man’s execution.

Did we pause to think about what the family and the victim were going through? Did we think about the root causes of this case? Some people may point the finger of blame at the parents, but what if the boy was an orphan or his father was away for work?

There are lessons that need to be learned in order to protect our children. We need to first realize the danger of smartphones. We need to educate our children about this danger and tell them that the virtual world is replete with criminals. We need to stress the importance of not talking to strangers.

Parents need to modify the phone to suit the age of the child. Parents need to regularly check the phone to see its content. We need to teach our children on how to deal with danger and to alert their parents or school. We need to create community police under the umbrella of the Interior Ministry. Lastly, we need to shed light on this issue in our media to educate society at large.

The message I want to send to human wolves is when they exploit their victims, they should know that God’s punishment is severe. If they take advantage of children who are lonely because their fathers are away, they should think they might be away on a mission to help building our economy or defend our country. These human wolves should never be allowed the satisfaction of destroying the stability of the Saudi family and the security of the country.