Saturday, April 7, 2012

Wia warns about social networks


Young girls have to be aware that danger lurks behind the most innocent activities – and giving away too much personal information on social networks can expose them to possible human trafficking.
Speaking at Aurora Girls High School in Zola, Soweto, on 23rd March, Mrs Marcia Pires, motivational speaker and founder of Women in Action (WiA), said it was vital for girls to become aware of the dangers of using social networks.
Aurora is the only girls school in Soweto. Surrounded by mixed schools, it's naturally the place where local boys visit to look for girlfriends.
Mrs Pires spoke about different forms of exploitation which include sex exploitation, forced slavery drug trafficking, domestic servitude and organ transplantation.
She said about 27 million people worldwide were "slaves". In South Africa 30,000 children were involved in sex exploitation, 260,000 enslaved in some way and about 40,000 people were trafficked across the country's borders.
Mrs. Pires advised the girls not to upload too many personal details on their profiles win using different social networks such as Facebook, BBM and Mix-it because those promoting human trafficking used such information to find victims.
It was clear at the end of the talk that many girls in the school were not well informed about human trafficking and as a result did not see a problem in chatting to strangers.
Mrs Maselwane, the school principal, expressed her appreciation for the talk by WiA and asked the group to visit regularly.

By Nomsa Masengemu
www.universalark.co.za



8 comments:

Mokgadi said...

Dear Mrs Marcia

I believe it really made a huge difference informing the young girls about human trafficking and how can they protect themselves and to avoid giving out too much information on social networks. That was a great initiative indeed as mostly they did not have a clue what was human trafficking all about, I also learned about it the time W.I.A introduced it.

Thank you for the post.
Mokgadi

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I know that it will make a good impact, many parents don't have the courage to speak to their children about the things the W.I.A spoke about, reason they think that its a new generation kids know these things already. But I want to thank you for still reaching out to them.

Making them aware of human trafficking and all sorts of dangers using the internet. May the work still continue strong and W.I.A still reaching out to help a hand.

Thank you God bless

Busie said...

Thank you Mrs Marcia for the post, most of the time when young ones post their images on the network with full details of their address, that also bring the person in danger coz whose taught are evil can even track that…..or become that person’s private or secret friend. Who knows what might happen after, I pray Mrs Marcia that we can go far with this topic to inform the young one’s who are the victims in our days without knowledge they are…

Elsie Tsosane said...

Thank you Mrs Marcia
Many young girls and boys are too much into social networks,giving out too much information to strangers not realizing they exposing themselves to human trafficking,this project will reach out to many and they will have a better understanding about human trafficking.

Amanda said...

that work created here is very good I love is very important that carries orientation the young women and that has been helping to many girls and it more important makes them knows our God I am pray always asking to God that protects each girl so that they does not involve in this situations. God blesses very much that work. may God bless you.

Thami Precious Mbatha said...

This talk is very important Mrs Marcia because many youth do not know about these dangers. They upload all of their very personal details because they are clueless about how dangerous the internet is. Stalkers, rapists,etc are all over the internet looking for young innocent girls to make victims. The work that the WIA is doing is very important in the community because the youth is always getting wrong information from the media and friends.

tania said...

Dear Mrs Marcia, this issue is very serious indeed among the youngsters. They are exposed to everything through technology, and usually the bad things prevail stronger amongst them because it is what 'everybody' is doing. Surely the girls on these school left this meeting with a new mentality. Thanks. God bless you.