There are resources available that can help people deal with the effects of, and prevent, cyberbullying, Rotary Club members heard in a presentation at their luncheon on Thursday.
Sara Irwin said as a registered nurse, she always seeks out extra education on various health issues, and last year she became a certified trauma worker which enables to work with those who experience psychological trauma as well as those who have physical trauma.
She noted that one-quarter of all Canadians will experience a traumatic event, and one in four girls and one in five boys experience victimization at some point in their lives.
“People can heal, and they do, but we’d rather prevent people being victimized,” said Irwin, leading to an explanation of how and why the Canadian Centre for Child Protection was established, specifically in dealing with such issues as cyberbullying.
The centre, headquartered in Winnipeg, is dedicated to the personal safety of children and locating missing children, and for the last 30 years, they have been providing resources and services to help provide safer communities, said Irwin.
An example of how youth are being victimized was Amanda Todd, a B.C. girl who was cyberbullied for a long time before she made a video about her bullying, and committed suicide. Irwin noted her aggressor was found in Europe and has been charged, after an extensive investigation by the RCMP and Interpol.
This led to the development of a number of resources, such as Project Arachnid, which is a Canadian-made web crawler that is able to trace IP addresses on the Internet when child pornography appears, and is able to eliminate child porn images off the Internet.
This came about as even when people are arrested and charged for the making and distributing of child pornography, their images remained circulating on the Internet, but this web crawler is able to go on and eliminate those images and stop the continued victimization of these children.
“Arachnid uses ground-breaking technology, and can find a photo even if it’s been cropped or altered in any way,” said Irwin. “It’s a giant step forward to help victims reclaim their lives.”
In the first six weeks that Arachnid was used, about 230 million web pages were scanned and 48,000 images related to child abuse were removed.
The Canadian Centre for Child Protection also has some online resources available, such as needhelpnow.ca, which helps youth in the removal of images.
The site tells youth what steps they can take to remove inappropriate images from the Internet, how they can get help when they need it, and how to cope with a difficult online situation.
The centre has tools available that can be used by schools and organizations who help youth, Irwin added, who noted this affects children all around the world, not just in Canada.
