Abstract:
Advances in technology have provided people with unparalleled opportunities to
communicate efficiently and in real time. Adults with an inappropriate sexual interest
in children have also benefited from developments in information and communications
technology, using it to establish contact with them, to develop relationships, and to
groom potential victims for sexual abuse and exploitation. Based on this, this study
examined how social media has become a gateway for online child grooming. The
study was anchored on the luring communication theory. The study adopted in-depth
interview as its research design. The study used purposive sampling technique to
draw a sample size of 15 experts. Findings from the study revealed that since the
introduction of social media platforms, the amount of child sexual abuse content
has been increasing yearly as these platforms have become a channel that offenders
use in soliciting and sharing of explicit images and videos of minors.
