Gaming Controller

Sharing – Online business from hell: Child trafficking in video games.

ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

Penelope gives a very detailed explanation of how trafficking starts online, in chat around popular online video games, and how it spreads. Most of all, however, she provides an incredibly important look into what a trafficker looks for in a kid playing video games:

“I’m not telling you this to tell you to keep your kids off video games. It’s impossible and also nonsensical. I’m telling you that if you are not emotionally available for your kid, someone else will be. And just like you wouldn’t leave your kid physically alone on a dark street to be assaulted, you shouldn’t leave your kid emotionally alone on the Internet.

Traffickers look for kids who have no emotionally available adult. Emotionally available adults are not just “a phone call away” or “always at home”. Emotionally available adults are not consumed with their own emotions, they know what’s going on day to day, they listen carefully, and genuinely care.

Traffickers know this and they ask kids all the time “what’s going on?” and “how is your day”? and traffickers listen very carefully so they respond in a way that is meaningful to the kid.

Video games aren’t dangerous. Emotional neglect is dangerous.”

I have talked about this before as well. Kids who are unlikely to keep secrets from their parents and other adults in their lives that they feel safe with make for bad targets. Approaching a kid with a well-developed sense of self and open communication with their parents is how traffickers get caught, and they are not trying to get caught.

The best thing you can do to protect kids is to provide a safe place for them with you. Because you can’t watch them every moment of every day.

https://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2022/05/07/online-business-from-hell-child-trafficking-in-video-games/

Similar Posts

  • Sharing – The Emerging Science of Suicide Prevention

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I’m not a researcher but these two facts make me wonder if there’s not something we can do.

    If we have a list of “nudges” that can help people feel like they belong or help educate people about things like safety plans, etc. and we don’t know who is at risk and which nudge might help them, maybe we should just continue to generally be kind to the people around us. That means trying to understand what makes them feel supported, connected, etc., and doing those things consistently. It also means noticing if a “nudge” has the opposite effect, and trying something different instead.

    Help people feel like they belong, educate people about prevention resources, help them stay connected to family and friends, involve them, accept them, etc.

    Help your friends and loved ones by communicating the kinds of things that help you. When you feel disconnected or like you are a burden, what can they do to keep you connected? What things do they do that make it worse?

    When we don’t talk about these things we only make it worse, and we only continue to lose more people. We have to learn how to have these conversations. We have to be open to listening to the people closest to us and connecting to them without stigma and judgment. The researchers will keep working to learn more about prevention, but in the meantime simply caring about each other and being honest with each other is the best tool we have. We should use it.

  • Link – Helping People Build Healing Relationships After Trauma

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    Robyn provides some good information. This is something I know many survivors struggle with – Well-meant urging or pressure to reach out in a time of need does not work for those who have experienced trauma in their lives. Something (seemingly) simple like accepting a compliment may be painfully hard. But the ability to integrate these…

  • Self Love Is a Struggle Because We Know Our Own Faults

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    We never get to see other people’s thoughts if they choose not to share them. We see ALL of our thoughts, however. That puts us at a disadvantage when deciding what we “deserve” compared to others. We might do well to assume that everyone has the same kind of thoughts that we do at times because we all do. We just don’t talk about them and share them with the world. (Most of us, anyway)

    And we all deserve self-care.

  • Link – What Men Really Think About Mental Health Stigma

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    “Talking about mental health is the first step to eliminating the negative stereotype around it — but for men, this can be particularly challenging. Approximately 6 million American men have depression each year, yet research shows many are reluctant to disclose their mental illness symptoms and are averse to seeking treatment. This is a dangerous…

  • |

    Link – Antidepressant Medications are not Placebos

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    If you jumped on the anti-depressants don’t work bandwagon, maybe take a breath. The researchers conclude that this study, as well as other recent reports from the same group, provides strong support for the assumption that SSRIs exert a specific antidepressant effect. The finding shows that the benefit of antidepressants is real, and not a…

  • Sharing – Just how useful is childhood therapy?

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Unfortunately, whether therapy is effective for your child, or for yourself as an adult, depends on a number of factors. Finding someone you can trust is an obvious one, and sometimes a real struggle. Elsewhere in the article, Melinda talks about the child not currently being in a traumatic situation, notably one interviewee who was seeing a therapist for depression while also being sexually abused at home. She knew she could talk about that, so the therapy was doomed from the start.

    Sometimes I believe we look at mental health treatments like therapy and dismiss them because “it didn’t work” without considering all of the outside factors that can influence whether it works or not.

One Comment

Comments are closed.

To respond on your own website, enter the URL of your response which should contain a link to this post's permalink URL. Your response will then appear (possibly after moderation) on this page. Want to update or remove your response? Update or delete your post and re-enter your post's URL again. (Find out more about Webmentions.)