“I feel their safety is the most important thing and I do not want them to fall prey to paedophilia which is a cancer on the Internet,” she said.

“Now, there are only a few photographs of my children with me and my husband as well as relatives taken during the last Hari Raya,” she told Bernama when contacted today.

Erin, 28, said her decision was made because she was scared and worried that her children’s photographs could be misused by local paedophiles who were reported to be active through the Telegram message application.

The group was exposed by social activist Syed Azmi Alhabshi, who said a friend had sent him a screenshot of uploads onto a Telegram group with 751 members, which included sexual jokes and comments of a young girl’s photograph they had shared.

Asma Yusoff, 33, on the other hand, feels that there is nothing wrong with uploading photographs of her children to be shared with relatives and friends on social media, especially Facebook.

“It is not wrong because I make sure that the photographs are of my children when they are decently dressed, and not wearing clothes like swimming suits which will definitely attract the attention of sex offenders.

“I have also set my Facebook account setting to ‘private’ for the photographs so they can be viewed and accessed only by people I know,” she said.

In the case of Najwa Ahmad, 32, she decided not to upload any photographs of her children on social media, but only shared them with family members through the WhatsApp application.

“I feel it is safe this way and I do not have to worry if the photographs are taken by anyone, so what is more important is for me to explain to the children what is paedophilia and why they should stay away from such people,” she said.

Clinical psychologist at Pantai Hospital, Dr Mat Saat Baki said paedophilia is defined as a desire to have sexual relations with children.

He said paedophiles were adult individuals who were psychologically disturbed, which means they are sexually attracted to children or use underage children for their sexual activities.

“There are some paedophiles who are prepared to sit for hours at their computers going through photographs of children they like, and then manipulating the photographs to satisfy their lust,” he said.

He said the majority of parents who have Facebook and Instagram accounts consider the issue of uploading photographs of their young children as just a harmless trend.

“I want to say that these people are obsessed about getting public attention.

“The parents feel good when other people view and comment about their children, but in doing so, what they do not realise is that exposing personal information about their children could attract paedophiles,” he said.

He added photographs of their children who are decently dressed would also not escape the attention of paedophiles.

“This is because today, there are applications and sophisticated technology which could edit the photographs so that the children are ‘stripped naked’,” he said.

Mat Saat said the control of online activity by paedophiles in this country was still low as there was still very little enforcement by local authorities on cyberspace.

“I am disappointed that many parents seem not to bother about the issue of paedophilia because it does not affect them personally, but maybe they will become more aware once it hits them,” he said.

Recently, a British paedophile Richard Huckle was sentenced to life imprisonment in the United Kingdom after pleading guilty to 71 offences against children in Malaysia.

Judge Peter Rook imposed the sentence on Huckle, 30 who pleaded guilty to committing the offences against children aged between six months and 12 years old.

According to BBC News, the despicable acts were committed between 2006 and 2014, and Huckle, who is from Ashford, England, would serve a minimum of 23 years in prison.

Mat Saat said pedophilia has existed in this country for a long time, and it grew with the times, especially through social media.

“Despite it being a big case, Malaysians are not learning from it but we have informed parents to be more careful,” he said.

He added that parents had a big responsibility to protect their young children.

– BERNAMA