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Most severe court case of underage sex
Growing danger from young kids going online, say social workers
By Elizabeth Soh
THE girl whom a trainee teacher had sex with when she was only 12 is believed to have also been intimate with at least 14 other men.
Six men, aged from 19 to 35 at the time of their offences, have already been dealt with in court. Their punishments ranged from fines to an 18-month jail term.
But The Straits Times understands that an additional nine men have been charged with having sexual relations with her, but there is no outcome yet on their convictions.
The case is believed to be the most severe - involving such a young girl - to have come before the courts.
Said criminal lawyer Sashi Nathan: 'As far as courts are concerned, this is the largest number of men involved that I have heard of. But I'm not particularly surprised because of the amount of access young people have to the Web.'
On Tuesday, trainee teacher Aaron Kok Chun Cheong, now 23, was the sixth man to be convicted for having sex with the girl.
He was jailed a total of 15 months for having underage sex with the girl in 2007, when she was 12, as well as with a second underage girl in 2008, when that girl was 15.
The first girl - now 15 - is believed to have met most of the 15 men between 2007 and 2008.
It was not until she was warded in hospital for stomach pain in July 2008 that the events of the past two years became apparent. She was found to be pregnant and later aborted the baby. It was not Kok's child.
When the police were called in, she admitted that she had had sexual intercourse with several male partners.
When The Straits Times contacted her parents yesterday, her mother said the family did not wish to talk about the matter as it was in the past.
'It is more important for parents to show concern about what is happening in their children's lives,' she said.
The girl was not at the family's western Singapore flat yesterday evening.
It is understood that since the incident, the girl has been spending her afternoons under supervision at an aunt's house after school, as both parents work.
A survey in 2008 of 226 sexually active teens between the ages of 10 and 19 found that three of them had their first sexual encounter at 11.
More than half have had at least three sex partners. One teen had 34, which might indicate that he or she was getting money for sex.
The findings were presented by the DSC, a public clinic managed by the Department of Sexually Transmitted Infections. The clinic also reported that it had diagnosed three times as many teens with sexually transmitted infections in 2008 as in 2002.
Another 2009 study of 500 sexually active teens conducted by the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health also revealed that 13.3 per cent of the boys and 10.4 per cent of the girls met their sex partners via the Internet.
Social workers here said that the average age of youth going online has fallen from about 14 five years ago to as young as 11 today.
Mr Ray Chua, a cyber-wellness consultant at the Touch Cyber Wellness Centre, said eight out of 10 upper primary pupils play online games.
'The falling average age, along with the fact that there are now so many different social networking platforms for them to interact, makes these kids very vulnerable to sexual predators,' he said.
He recounted how a parent of a 13-year-old girl told him that she had a webcam session with a man she had met on Habbo Hotel, an online social networking platform. 'In the process, he exposed his genitals to her,' said Mr Chua.
Habbo Hotel, also known as Habbo, was also the social networking platform where Kok got to know the two girls. Other popular online interactive games include MapleStory, Gaia Online, Gunbound and RuneScape.
Counsellors said youngsters start out joining games to interact with real, or offline friends, but end up blurring the line between the Internet and the real world.
'A 'like' on Facebook gives as much validation and affirmation to the youth, if not more so, than a hug in real life,' said Mr Alphonsus Lee, who manages the cyber counselling department at Marine Parade Family Service Centre.
Once the older person gains the trust of the youth, the relationship moves from online to offline.
Secondary 1 student Evangeline Lee, 13, said she was approached by an older man on online game RuneScape last year.
After chatting with her and giving her online gifts, he said that he loved her and wanted to meet her in person.
'He told me that he was 19 years old and to meet him at a McDonald's in City Hall,' she said.
She told her mother about it and did not meet the man. Her mother now monitors her Internet use strictly.
A 17-year-old girl who wanted to be known only as Nur was not as lucky.
When she was 12, she turned to online games like Gunbound and Internet relay chatrooms to make friends and ended up befriending and having sex with eight men over four years, she said.
'They showered me with care and concern and also gifts in real life, which I craved,' said Nur, whose hawker mother is a single parent.
'Although I knew it was wrong, I didn't know who to tell or how to stop.'
It ended only when she was sent for counselling in school after vandalising a classroom, and told a school counsellor about her online relationships.
She refused to name the men, who were aged between 17 and 25 at the time. She was sent to a girl's home and has undergone extensive counselling.
'The experience left me physically and emotionally scarred,' said Nur.
'Parents need to pay a lot of attention to what their kids are doing online, because the price of their neglect is too high for anyone to pay.'
[email protected]
Growing danger from young kids going online, say social workers
By Elizabeth Soh
THE girl whom a trainee teacher had sex with when she was only 12 is believed to have also been intimate with at least 14 other men.
Six men, aged from 19 to 35 at the time of their offences, have already been dealt with in court. Their punishments ranged from fines to an 18-month jail term.
But The Straits Times understands that an additional nine men have been charged with having sexual relations with her, but there is no outcome yet on their convictions.
The case is believed to be the most severe - involving such a young girl - to have come before the courts.
Said criminal lawyer Sashi Nathan: 'As far as courts are concerned, this is the largest number of men involved that I have heard of. But I'm not particularly surprised because of the amount of access young people have to the Web.'
On Tuesday, trainee teacher Aaron Kok Chun Cheong, now 23, was the sixth man to be convicted for having sex with the girl.
He was jailed a total of 15 months for having underage sex with the girl in 2007, when she was 12, as well as with a second underage girl in 2008, when that girl was 15.
The first girl - now 15 - is believed to have met most of the 15 men between 2007 and 2008.
It was not until she was warded in hospital for stomach pain in July 2008 that the events of the past two years became apparent. She was found to be pregnant and later aborted the baby. It was not Kok's child.
When the police were called in, she admitted that she had had sexual intercourse with several male partners.
When The Straits Times contacted her parents yesterday, her mother said the family did not wish to talk about the matter as it was in the past.
'It is more important for parents to show concern about what is happening in their children's lives,' she said.
The girl was not at the family's western Singapore flat yesterday evening.
It is understood that since the incident, the girl has been spending her afternoons under supervision at an aunt's house after school, as both parents work.
A survey in 2008 of 226 sexually active teens between the ages of 10 and 19 found that three of them had their first sexual encounter at 11.
More than half have had at least three sex partners. One teen had 34, which might indicate that he or she was getting money for sex.
The findings were presented by the DSC, a public clinic managed by the Department of Sexually Transmitted Infections. The clinic also reported that it had diagnosed three times as many teens with sexually transmitted infections in 2008 as in 2002.
Another 2009 study of 500 sexually active teens conducted by the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health also revealed that 13.3 per cent of the boys and 10.4 per cent of the girls met their sex partners via the Internet.
Social workers here said that the average age of youth going online has fallen from about 14 five years ago to as young as 11 today.
Mr Ray Chua, a cyber-wellness consultant at the Touch Cyber Wellness Centre, said eight out of 10 upper primary pupils play online games.
'The falling average age, along with the fact that there are now so many different social networking platforms for them to interact, makes these kids very vulnerable to sexual predators,' he said.
He recounted how a parent of a 13-year-old girl told him that she had a webcam session with a man she had met on Habbo Hotel, an online social networking platform. 'In the process, he exposed his genitals to her,' said Mr Chua.
Habbo Hotel, also known as Habbo, was also the social networking platform where Kok got to know the two girls. Other popular online interactive games include MapleStory, Gaia Online, Gunbound and RuneScape.
Counsellors said youngsters start out joining games to interact with real, or offline friends, but end up blurring the line between the Internet and the real world.
'A 'like' on Facebook gives as much validation and affirmation to the youth, if not more so, than a hug in real life,' said Mr Alphonsus Lee, who manages the cyber counselling department at Marine Parade Family Service Centre.
Once the older person gains the trust of the youth, the relationship moves from online to offline.
Secondary 1 student Evangeline Lee, 13, said she was approached by an older man on online game RuneScape last year.
After chatting with her and giving her online gifts, he said that he loved her and wanted to meet her in person.
'He told me that he was 19 years old and to meet him at a McDonald's in City Hall,' she said.
She told her mother about it and did not meet the man. Her mother now monitors her Internet use strictly.
A 17-year-old girl who wanted to be known only as Nur was not as lucky.
When she was 12, she turned to online games like Gunbound and Internet relay chatrooms to make friends and ended up befriending and having sex with eight men over four years, she said.
'They showered me with care and concern and also gifts in real life, which I craved,' said Nur, whose hawker mother is a single parent.
'Although I knew it was wrong, I didn't know who to tell or how to stop.'
It ended only when she was sent for counselling in school after vandalising a classroom, and told a school counsellor about her online relationships.
She refused to name the men, who were aged between 17 and 25 at the time. She was sent to a girl's home and has undergone extensive counselling.
'The experience left me physically and emotionally scarred,' said Nur.
'Parents need to pay a lot of attention to what their kids are doing online, because the price of their neglect is too high for anyone to pay.'
[email protected]
