TESTIMONY OF P--- S---, MOTHER OF TWO FROM BALTIMORE MD

I live in Maryland, and I am the mother of two children, who have grown 
up with the wonders of the computer, and the limitless opportunities it 
offers them.

I am here today to share an experience and to express my concerns as a 
parent, with children growing up on the "Information Superhighway". 

Early this summer, my thirteen-year old daughter went to her friend's 
house to play on the computer. They were in the neighborhood; they were 
properly supervised; and I knew they were safe. It was shocking to 
discover later what they had experienced that afternoon. 

The girls were in a teenage chatroom on America OnLine, and were 
propositioned for "cybersex". Initially, they thought it was funny, 
giggling as you'd expect thirteen-year olds would, but as the requests 
became raunchier, they were frightened.

I, too, am frightened, and appalled at how I am not able to protect my 
children on the Internet. As I continued to research this topic, and 
speak with other children and parents, I have discovered that almost 
seven out of ten have been victimized on the Internet. 

I speak openly with my children, so my daughter was not afraid to come 
to me with this experience. My daughter's friend, however, insisted that 
I could not reveal what happened to her parents. She felt almost guilty, 
as if she were responsible for what happened to her. When does a victim 
become the guilty party in this? Only when the victim is confused and 
happens to be a child. Children as young as ten years old have related 
stories to me of how they were propositioned, and of nude pictures sent 
to them on their computer so they could recognize the sender, who wanted 
to set up a face-to-face meeting.

I understand that I have responsibilities as a parent to protect my 
children. I am in the communications field myself, and am aware of the 
wonderful benefits of using the computer for research, communications, 
creativity, and entertainment. What is disconcerting to me as a parent 
is the fact that I was unaware of the dangers of chatting on-line, and 
of the amount of pornographic material available to anyone with a 
computer and a modem. I've learned that you can download hard-core 
pornography; you can search the Internet to talk to anyone with the same 
interests as yours, be it common or perverse, and that all this can be 
accessed by children free of charge.

I am aware of software and other "lock-out" features that I can download 
into my computer. But what happens when my children are at a neighbor's 
house? What happens if peer pressure builds, and a normal sleep-over 
party of teen-age boys becomes an opportunity to read and view 
pornographic material, material they may not have access to otherwise? 
What happens in multi-cultural homes that own computers? Parents may not 
be literate, but with children who have been educated here and have 
access to this indecent and obscene material. Children today have grown 
up with the computer, and I can safely say they are more computer 
literate than the majority of their parents. 

An education process has to start immediately to help protect our 
children. I am working with Enough is Enough, a wonderful group based in 
Fairfax, Virginia dedicated to protecting children against pornography. 
I have concerned parents and businesses in my community involved in 
starting grassroots organizations to educate both the children and 
parents on this issue.

I believe in freedom of speech. I also believe in responsibility; 
responsibility by the providers of the online service companies to 
protect the innocence of children. If hard-core pornographic materials 
are illegal in the mainstream distribution channels, it should also be 
illegal on the Internet. If society has laws to protect children against 
child molesters, then there should be laws against these child molesters 
looking for victims on the Internet, too. They may have looked on school 
playgrounds yesterday, but the playground for the Children of the 
Nineties is the Information Superhighway.