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A British Columbia-wide television, print and online campaign to stop predators from soliciting children on the Internet launched Friday, just weeks before the 2010 Winter Olympics begin in Vancouver.
Called Predator Watch and initiated by the Coquitlam, B.C.-based Children of the Street Society, the $100,000 campaign aims to prevent the sexual exploitation of children.
Diane Sowden, executive director for Children of the Street Society, said the group received a $45,000 provincial grant and made up the balance of the campaign budget through in-kind donations. A radio component is awaiting funding.
The television ad by Rethink shows a man watching a "hot teens” online video. On the desk is a picture of his wife and son. He sees a young girl looking at him from the screen and then it morphs into a picture of himself and the tag line "We’re watching you watch. Undercover officers are online.”
The print portion of the campaign has police officers wearing masks of smiling children, above the line "Attention predators: undercover officers are online.”
"People have this image that purchasers of the sex trade are these terrible seedy people, but we are actually finding it is mainstream men,” said Sowden. "That’s why it’s so important that this message gets out to the general public because it’s so easy to sit in an office or at home or a hotel room and connect with a young person through the net. And because these individuals think that they can’t get caught they may take opportunities that they may not normally do.”
Lisa Lebedovich, an art director at Rethink, said the campaign was intentionally timed to coincide with the Olympics.
"We also wanted to talk to people who weren’t necessarily already doing this, but people who were thinking about doing it,” she said. "Because surprisingly enough a lot of these guys have families and very successful careers and we just wanted them to know that the police are out there watching and you will get caught.”
The campaign is supported by the B.C. Association of Chiefs, the Ministry of Public Safety, the Solicitor General and the Ministry of Children and Family Development.
