Caddle: Dangerous predators prowling in gaming communities

Parents have been warned that one of the most popular online games played by children has been deemed to be dangerous for youngsters due to the number of sexual predators who lurk in the online community.

Minister of Industry, Innovation, Science and Technology Marsha Caddle issued the caution Tuesday as she contributed to debate in the House of Assembly on the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill 2024.

She told the Lower House: “There was a recent report that assessed the danger of certain common online activities that children do. And one of the ones that was flagged . . . is a game that many of our children play. So it is not necessarily Fortnite or Grand Theft Auto . . . . but Roblox – which is something that seven and eight and nine and ten-year-olds play – has been deemed as one of the most dangerous. Not necessarily because of the game itself, but because of the communities that convene around these games and the conversations that take place and the fact that there are adults and others who would seek to do harm lurking in these environments, engaging our children.”

The St Michael South Central Member of Parliament told the House that child grooming by adults online was often invisible.

As a result, she stressed the importance of protecting young people in those environments.

In her contribution to the debate on the amendment, Caddle rejected the approach of seeking to be “polite” when addressing “something that was not polite at all”, as she referenced the matter of sexual violence.

“To say that somebody ‘troubles’ somebody, I do not use that language. And I do not know what you mean when you use that language. Was the person raped? Sexually assaulted? What was the act? It’s only when we get real and confront what is happening to people that we understand the severity of what we are dealing with here,” she insisted.

“A girl who was sexually assaulted was not ‘troubled’ and she was not ‘interfered with’. And similarly, the language in the media has to be frontally addressed. Because so often we are talking about cases of rape, we are talking about cases where a minor, as this legislation says, cannot consent.

“Until we start to get very clear in our language and not treat things under the cover of giggles and blushing and acting as if it is some kind of little community secret, it is only then that we will start to really address and start to have a frank conversation beyond legislation,” the MP told her parliamentary colleagues.

Caddle was also critical of the practice of sexualising children. She referenced the way young children are dressed by parents and guardians.

“We over-sexualise children from zero to 14 years old. And then at the point at which children are actually fully coming into their sexual identity, we tell them, ‘you’re not a woman in here’.

“Which is it? It is time for us to be able to have a real and frank conversation about sexual expression throughout a person’s life cycle. So that we don’t have these hushed tones and whispers when the wrong thing happens in our communities, in our schools, in our sporting and social clubs, in our churches,” Caddle insisted.

(IMC1)