WINNIPEG — It is a video watched nearly 24 million times on social media.
YouTube and Vine star “Joey Salads” is well-known for pranking, but a social experiment he filmed at a public park has gone viral after he was able to walk away, hand-in-hand, with a child he didn’t know.
READ MORE: Social experiment sheds light on how easy child abductions can be
“I think I understand why its viral. It’s what all parents fear, it’s one of our biggest fears,” said Christy Dzikowicz with the Canadian Centre for Child Protection based in Winnipeg. “One of the things that is nice when these kinds of things hit the media is it reminds us to have these conversations.”
In the video Salads approached each child’s mother beforehand to explain his project.
“How many times do you tell your kid not to talk to strangers?” he asked one woman on a park bench.
“I tell my kid every day,” she replied.
Dzikowicz estimates the children in the video are around four or five years old.
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“They require direct supervision so I would hope in most situations a four or five year olds in the park are being supervised,” she said. “I think the piece would have been more interesting when they are eight, nine or 10 years old when really teaching them personal safety practices becomes more and more important as they gain independence.”
Dzikowicz says parents should start the safety conversation young but continue bringing it up daily.
“What is most important is to carve out time everyday to talk about safety as opposed to waiting until something bad happens in the community and then we are all paying attention or something like this video,” she said.
Instead of focusing on “Stranger Danger”, Dzikowicz said it’s best to focus more on children not going someplace with another person instead of avoiding talking to strangers.
“If they are asked to go anywhere with anyone they should check in with their parents before they do anything,” she said.
According to 2013 statistics from the RCMP, 41,035 children were reported missing in Canada. Of those 130 were reports of parental abduction and 33 were considered stranger abductions. In this case stranger abductions also includes close friends and relatives who are not the parents.
For more information from the Centre For Child Protection and age appropriate lessons you can visit their website here.
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