How do they groom?
According to the NGO Grooming Argentina, the term grooming is an anglicism that translates into approaching or grooming behaviors, becoming a crime in different Latin American countries. This process is executed by the harasser and consists of different well-differentiated stages, which may be replaced and/or alternated with each other:
1) Hooking or entrapment stage:
In order to gain trust and establish a bond of friendship, at this stage the harasser approaches the child or adolescent, generally falsifying their identity and/or their age, through a conversation where the exchange of tastes, preferences and interests.
2) Loyalty stage:
At this stage, knowing the tastes and interests of the child or adolescent, the stalker deepens the relationship by obtaining a greater amount of personal data, where he will try to keep the attention captive, trying to build loyalty through the exchange of secrets, confidences, promises, etc.
3) Seduction stage:
At this stage, the harasser will seduce and sexualize the conversation, generally through questions and/or stories to generate a commitment and/or emotional dependency in the child or adolescent.
4) Stage of sexual harassment:
This stage is characterized by a marked sexual assault, implicit or explicit, in which the harasser manipulates the victim through the request of intimate images and/or videos, or the proposal of a personal meeting. In those cases in which the boy, girl or adolescent does not agree to her requirements, the harasser will exercise different forms of violence, such as: blackmail, extortion, threats or coercion. In conclusion, this process can go on for days, weeks, months and/or years, becoming a new form of sexual abuse without physical contact against children and adolescents.
“Although on Twitter we do not allow children under 13 to access the network, we have seen an increase in this problem and for this reason we decided to create an action guide so that parents and minors know how to identify this situation, prevent it and act ”, told Expansión, Danya Centeno, representative of the Public Policy team of Twitter Hispanoamérica.