• 
• 

Published on November 2, 2007

Smaller chat lines are mushrooming and leading young users into sex or even running away from home.

Social networking websites are also becoming popular for youths to design homepages about their lives and display revealing pictures of them-selves. This opened a channel for criminals to prey on them, the Thai Health Promotion Foundation warned.

Mirror Foundation official Ekkalak Lumchumkhae said while many major chat lines were closed down, the problem remained. Operators just linked a server to a home phone line to run illegal chat lines.

Such services reportedly charge only Bt3 for 30 minutes, which was cheaper and more convenient for youths to talk with their friends and strangers, Ekkalak said.

At least five girls under 15 went missing after using such chat lines, he said.

Many girls under 18 were using chat lines, so men were drawn to them to buy sex or coax them out to rape them.

Many kids became addicted, chatting at least 10 times a day, and many parents contacted the foundation out of worry about their kids' behaviour, such as going out at night with "friends" that they did not know, he said.

The government should set up an agency to register and regulate chat line operators so their services are appropriate and they show responsibility to society and prevent abuse, he said.

ThaiHealth official Sunit Chettha said chat line services had spread to the Internet, where people put personal information - such as addresses and phone numbers - of their chat partners, especially girls, putting them at risk.

"Kids go to chat lines because they want to make friends or boyfriends/girlfriends but that craving could bring danger to them," he said.

Social networking sites allowed users to build their own websites and upload personal content, and, since viewing invitations were passed down a chain, strangers could end up looking at these contents.

Youths were keen on having their own homepages, making websites such as hi5.com the country's third most popular with at least 400,000 members, he said.

Ill-intentioned people could access information to learn users' routines and behaviour and to pretend to make friends with them before persuading them out for sexual dates or physically attack them.

The Nation