The Office of the Children’s Advocate (OCA) is reporting an increase in instances of sexual grooming of minors, with more than 90 cases recorded last year.

“We have been tracking this issue of how people have inappropriate conversations with children for a long time, but we noticed in last year we had about 92 cases that came to us that had some element of grooming,” Children’s Advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison told Our Today.

As a result, the OCA on Tuesday, September 19, launched an anti-grooming handbook, titled How to Prevent Sexual Grooming to spread awareness about sexual grooming.

“There is a grooming component that kept coming up and because grooming is so subtle we always think that it’s important to impart tips that help people to be aware of the subtle way in which violators can get to children. Also with the increased aspect of online usage and online access that created another way through which people were getting children into compromising conversations and kind of sexualising them and we thought that it was very important for all of these reasons to issue these tips and the resource at this time,” the children’s advocate said.

She noted that the handbook will be provided to guidance counsellors, parents, and Sunday school teachers.

“Sexual grooming is a difficult topic to broach with your six-year-old, it’s not something that you get up and talk about over tea, so what this handbook does it helps parents to have a difficult conversation with their children by using very simple, non-embarrassing terms but clearly communicating the message,” she added.

Gordon Harrison also urged members of the public to utilise the soft copy of the handbook that is readily available on the OCA’s website.

According to the American Bar Association, sexual grooming is a preparatory process in which a perpetrator gradually gains a person’s or organisation’s trust with the intent to be sexually abusive. Sexual grooming can occur in-person, through social media platforms, or in institutional settings.