Innocent Posting?
19 October 2020
The following is an edited scenario of a real-life trafficking case and how innocently it happened from a Facebook Post. It has been copied and shared with permission. Please read and consider before you Facebook Post anything!
A Simple Facebook Post
A guy sends you a friend request. He looks nice enough, so you check him out on Facebook before accepting it. He’s got a wife and the cutest kids. You don’t know him, but he looks to be a family man and his profile looks good, so you accept his friend request.
It’s your baby girl’s first day of school and she looks so adorable in her new dress. You take a photo and Facebook Post it for all of your family and friends to see. You are so excited as you are dropping her off that you “Check-In” to her school on Facebook saying, “I can’t believe how big she has gotten. Time sure does fly! Proud mama and papa here.”
Here is where it all went wrong.
Meanwhile, the mystery guy whose friend request you hurriedly accepted earlier, is saving that photo that you posted to his phone. He texts that photo to 60 other men throughout the world with the caption, “British Female, Age 8, Brown Hair, Brown Eyes, ID# R8000.”
Not only did you provide a photo of your daughter to a child trafficker, but you have also handed him the name and location of her school on a silver cyber platter.
You go to pick her up at 3:00 at school that afternoon, but she is no where to be found. Little do you know that your precious baby girl has been sold to a 43 year-old pedophile before you even stepped foot off of the school grounds this morning. Now she is on her way to Asia, scared, crying and with a bag over her head.
A strange man that she has never seen before snatched her from school in less than ten seconds. She’s alone, scared, unsure of where she is going and what is going to happen to her next. And YOU did this to her, unknowingly!
A little knowledge goes a long way.
But now you know! Stop adding strangers to Facebook. And, stop posting everything about your kids and their lives as well. Avoid posting your child’s photos or on profiles. Change our hometown…those who truly know you already know where you live! Please share this with all parents and kids and THINK before you Facebook Post. Thank you.
