I recently read an interesting post in a UK newsletter about the government’s efforts to provide a service to women to warn them of potential abusive men that they may come across in dating websites. This work was spurred by ‘Calre’s Law’ which was advocated by government officials in the recent murder of a woman who found a man through an online dating site.

The idea behind this work is that the UK government has an extensive database of offenders and many women can find comfort in conducting a search though the database for potential offenders.

Although, this is a noble move by the government, it does not solve the entire problem.

In particular, new offenders will not be found in the database because no incident has been logged. The online dating industry is a growing power house that will attract many individuals from all parts of society including reclusive and violent people. Since many of these offenders are almost always loners and live in a world all by themselves, the virtual world offers a perfect avenue to converse with women and overcome their social deficiencies.

The help from the UK government cannot preclude the fact that, women will always have to remain vigil whomever they have to date and they need to take appropriate measures and always follow these rules:

- Tell a friend you are going to meet someone you met online

- Always meet in a public place

- Never go inside of a car with someone you just met