Tuesday, June 20, 2006

MySpace Teen Goes to the West Bank

Check out what happened to this 17 year old girl who tried to travel to the West Bank to be with a guy she met on MySpace.

She was traveling to be with Abdullah Jimzawi, a 20-year-old high school dropout who lives with his parents in Jericho, West Bank. They met through MySpace.com, a social networking Web site whose popularity with teenagers has raised concerns among U.S. authorities, with scattered accounts of sexual predators targeting minors on the site.

Jimzawi, in a recent interview with The Associated Press, said he loves the girl and the two planned to marry. She was to convert to Islam, he said.

That was pretty brave of her to travel like that halfway around the world to a pretty dangerous place to be with a guy. Or it could mean she is ignorant of that part of the world and thought it was like getting on a plane and going to Las Vegas or something. This part I don't agree with though:

At a hearing Monday, Judge W. Wallace Kent Jr. ordered Lester to give up her passport and undergo counseling. He did not rule on the validity of the petition.

Why would she need counseling? She seems to have her stuff together enough to travel all the way to Amman, Jordan and try to head to Tel Aviv. She is 17 so it is not like she doesn't know what she is doing. I wonder if she would have to have court mandated counseling if this 20 year old guy was living in Spain or something?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

She responded to a child-adult Internet-based solicitation by running away: defined as being AWOL from home without parental approval, and she traveled internationally...court mandated counseling is SOP in these situations...destination notwithstanding.