Sonya Ryan’s cyber crusade goes global

SONYA Ryan’s campaign to keep teenagers safe started after her daughter was murdered. Now it’s having a global impact with groups as diverse as the United Nations and Texas Rangers.

• Sonya Ryan and her fight for Carly’s Law
• Carly Ryan: The loving girl who fell victim to an online predator
• Carly’s Law passes in Federal Parliament

THE inspiring cyber safety campaign created by the mother of murdered Adelaide teenager Carly Ryan is growing into a global crusade, winning endorsement from the United Nations and social media giant Facebook.

And law enforcement agencies the Texas Rangers and the LAPD have also invited Sonya Ryan to speak about her work in the US.

Ms Ryan’s profile began to grow in May, when ​two​ senior Facebook representatives — including the head of Trust and Safety in the Asia-Pacific — ​ approached her with an offer of support after she opened a Queensland Police Youth and Technology conference.

“They said they thought it was remarkable what I was doing, considering what had happened to Carly,” said Ms Ryan, the 2013 South Australian of the Year and a member of the Online Safety Consultative Working Group advising the Federal Government on cyber safety for children and youth.

“Particularly the way we educate around empowerment and how to use online mediums well and protect yourself from inappropriate contact.”

She plans to hold further talks with Facebook about their offer of support.

Ms Ryan’s 15-year-old daughter was killed by paedophile Garry Newman​ who lured her to Port Elliot by posing​ as a young American musician called Brandon.

She founded the Carly Ryan Foundation in the Adelaide Hills three years after her daughter’s murder ​​in February, 2007.

At the same Queensland conference, she ​was approached by US law enforcement agency the Texas Rangers, which helps organise the international Crimes Against Children conference ​in America ​each year.

“They invited me next year to Dallas, to the child exploitation conference there,” she said.

Also in the audience were child protection officers from the Los Angeles Police Department who made a gift presentation and invited her to LA to speak about her work.

Sonya Ryan with a favourite photo of Carly. Picture: Matt Turner

GUEST SPEAKER AT UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE

Adding to the momentum, the United Nations pledged its support to her work, and publicly endorsed the Carly Ryan Foundation on Twitter.

She has accepted an invitation to speak at a UN conference in Bangkok in October.

“The UN wants me to be involved in events around the world,” she said.

Ms Ryan is a​ self-made international pioneer of social media safety.

Carly was groomed by her killer in the early days of MySpace and MSN messaging which have since been overtaken by more sophisticated forums including Facebook and Snapchat.

In 2010, Ms Ryan attended the first national cyber safety conference in Canberra.

“This is a worldwide issue and a borderless crime,” Ms Ryan said. “What happened to Carly happens overseas regularly.”

Carly’s Law, the namesake federal legislation which passed through the Senate in June, was the culmination of Ms Ryan’s campaign, supported by Nick Xenophon’s NXT party, to close the gap that stopped police thwarting online grooming before a crime was committed.

As Commonwealth law, it can be used by police in any state, Ms Ryan said.

Ms Ryan has no intention of stopping her crusade now Carly’s Law is in place.

She will focus on a new target, which is the inadequacy of sentencing for serious child sex offences.

She and Nick Xenophon’s NXT are targeting federal law that has a maximum penalty of 25 years but which are rarely enforced.

“I want to ignite a new sentencing regimen that will start nationally and filter down to the states,” she says.

“When you’re fighting for something that is right, how can people question that? It’s an obvious gross inadequacy.”

WHAT CAN I DO TO CREATE POSITIVE CHANGE?

Ms Ryan, who speaks in SA Weekend today about how she climbed out of the black hole of grief because of her love for Carly, said she felt she was doing what her daughter would have wanted.

“When you go through something so tragic, so horrific, it puts everything into perspective,” she said. “All of a sudden you are in this place of clarity and you sit there and think ‘what can I do to try and create positive change?’. That is really what this journey is about.”

Ms Ryan, now 46, started her safety campaign by speaking to schools about online safety before becoming an in-demand conference speaker.

She admits to having had no special skills and was an inexperienced speaker but forced herself to step up because she had to.

“Look at me, I’m just a mum from Adelaide and of course I get nervous, I’ve never trained in public speaking but I just stepped up,” she said.

“I’ve got nothing to lose, I’ve lost Carly who was the most important thing to me in my life. This truly is the power of love so let’s do this and see how far we can go.”