![]() ![]() The hospital examination was next, and with it, more pain. The police had to cut away a piece of the sofa and bag it up for evidence.” I certainly cannot imagine how hard it would be to live through. “He hurt her,” Kristin says again, and the anguish is hard to watch and hard to hear. There’s a whirlwind of police sirens and EMS and evidence collection and nurses and a rape kit. And at this point, I’m crying along with her. You know how, as a mom, you see your kid and you just know for certain that something is wrong?” And the second she opens the door, I see her face and - you know, Roo. I’m confused and I don’t understand why she’s not at school, so I quickly drive home. “Emma called me and was crying and wouldn’t tell me what happened, just that she needed help. When it was over, he left and drove off, leaving Emma bruised and bloodied and fearful. She laid there and cried while he hurt her on the sofa.” And he didn’t just take advantage of her and rape her. Over the next fifteen minutes of our interview, Kristin tearfully explains to me how the perpetrator viciously harmed and sexually assaulted her daughter in the family’s living room. He knew that no one but Emma would be home. “And one day, she’s supposed to walk to the bus stop and get on the bus.”Įmma stayed home and waited for her new friend - a 22-year-old man - to meet her at home. He was obviously exploiting her feelings of loneliness,” she says. “So she posted, and a man responded, and unbeknownst to me or Emma’s dad, they were talking over the period of a couple of weeks. But in many cases - and certainly in this case - it can be easily exploited by a child predator. This kind of vulnerability is common among tweens and teens, and it's easy for parents to empathize with it. “About not giving out personal information, not telling people where you live, not sharing details about your life, not talking to strangers online.”Įmma had - like many teenagers do - posted sincerely to Instagram about her loneliness. “Oh, we had conversations about privacy,” Kristin says emphatically. They had gone over the rules - don’t bully anyone, don’t give anyone your info - before the handoff, and there was, of course, the understanding that Kristin could look at Emma’s phone at any time to poke around and see if anything’s amiss. Kristin’s daughter Emma was 14 with a shiny new smartphone. I’m grateful that she’s trusting me to help her tell it. It’s one that could be tritely described as every parent’s fear. Īnd I think of it again as I interview Kristin, a fellow mom and fellow Bark team member, about her story. There’s no such thing as other people’s kids. He had spent the flight engrossed in his phone and earbuds, but when the airplane dipped for a second, he reached out and clutched my hand, and I patted it reassuringly. I remember that line when I’m on a turbulent airplane ride, next to a seemingly indifferent 13-year-old boy who is flying with his blissfully snoozing dad. I’m a mom to three girls, but I - like all of us at Bark - am passionate about the well-being of all children everywhere. There’s a quote attributed to writer and speaker Glennon Doyle that says, “There’s no such thing as other people’s kids.” The first time I read that line, it resonated with me in a powerful way. This is a tactic where predators will coerce their victims to send explicit images with the intention of blackmailing them for money.Īccording to the FBI’s Internet Crime Report, they received more than 18,000 sextortion-related complaints, with losses more than $13.6 million in 2021.Content Warning: This article discusses multiple forms of trauma, including sexual assault, and online predators. Law enforcement has also seen an increase in sextortion among adolescents. One tip is to not accept messages or friend requests from people they haven’t met in person. Having conversations about online safety can prevent predators from gaining access to children. So, kids are more susceptible, they don’t have the life experience of adults saying hey this is somebody who’s trying to get something from me,” said Sergeant Scott Sitzes, supervisor for school resource officers with the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office. So, they want to look and see, somebody may say something to them that is quite faltering, you look very pretty or for guys you look like you really work out, things like that. “They look for acceptance and they’re also trying to figure out who they are. ![]()
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