It’s a sad fact that children and young teens who are confused or curious about their sexuality will these days turn to apps for answers. In the best case scenario, these teens will narrowly avoid sexual predators and grow up relatively unscathed but with an altered sense of normal relationships. In the worst case, things like this happen…

An Australian man has been arrested for raping a 13-year-old boy in his front garden. After allegedly meeting only on Friday (28th Sept), Moud Ul Hasan Nuri exchanged photos and personal details with the lad before arranging to meet up.

But the boy deleted the app, cutting off contact with Nuri. Until he turned up to his house, approached him in his front garden (at 6.45pm), pushed him to ground and sexually assaulted him.

Thankfully the boy’s mother came rushing out to help, when Nuri jumped into his car and drove off. But was arrested and charged with one count of sexual intercourse without consent, the same night.

Clearly, this guy was not mentally unstable, especially to approach the boy so publicly and while it’s still light out. Though even rare cases are a clear-cut sign that our current safety methods just aren’t enough.

Police have issued a warning encouraging parents to warn their children about the dangers of talking to strangers online. Schools need to get on this too. Part of mandatory education should definitely be scaring kids away from Grindr and Tindr – at least for now. Because what 90s child didn’t have an underage online chat with a more predatory guy?

Grindr rolled out its Kindr initiative recently, and while we welcome a zero-tolerance policy on hate, what can they be doing to protect its users from physical threats and violence?