WHEN the hawker first saw her teenage daughter's semi-nude photos on the Internet, she chose to ignore them.

Her reason: Fear that her daughter, then 16, would 'disappear' again - a stunt the girl had pulled four times over a year.

Madam Lim, a 40-year-old single mother, told The New Paper on Sunday: 'I didn't want her to run away from home again.' (We are not using her full name to protect her daughter's identity.)

But when she saw a fresh set of photos - with one showing her daughter shielding her breasts with just her hands - she knew it was time to seek help.

Her daughter was furious, deeming what her mother did to be intrusive.

But after counselling, they have managed to work things out.

Getting common

This teen is among an increasing number of young girls who think nothing of posting nude pictures of themselves online.

Early last month, two different sets of photographs were posted on a local online portal over two days.

In one, a young local woman showed off her naked body in a room, while in another, a woman exposed her breasts and private parts.

The first set was initially posted under the Friendster profile of a Faith Ong, whose account has since been removed.

In the other, the photographs were apparently taken at an HDB staircase landing and first appeared on a foreign website before they made their way to the local portal.

A check with Stomp, a user content site, revealed that it receives such postings about once every twomonths.

Reader Wendy Ee, 44, was concerned over the increasing frequency of such blatant displays of nudity and of young girls making out with boys in public spots.

Said the administration manager, a mother of two girls aged 15 and 14: 'Each time I come across such newspaper reports, I get paranoid and start spot-checking my daughters' things.'

On 11 Dec, The New Paper reported on a teenage couple getting openly intimate in a multi-storey carpark.

All 50 parents The New Paper on Sunday spoke to shared Mrs Ee's fear.

Businessman Ng Kek Meng, 50, was particularly worried because he and his PR consultant wife often travel because of work.

The couple have a 15-year-old daughter, who, he said, was beginning to show signs of going astray.

He said: 'Our maid has told us that when we're away, our girl dresses up in skimpy attire when she goes out.'

But, he said his daughter has continued to deny this.

Psychologist Richard Lim cautions parents against ignoring the warning signs.

He said: 'Deliberately or subconsciously, it is a desperate cry for help from the child.

'You should arrest the situation before it veers out of control.'

In Madam Lim's case, her niece helped to monitor her daughter's blog and alerted her about the new set of photos.

She then approached a church counsellor for help.

When confronted, her daughter was angry.

The girl, who is now working as a part-time sales assistant, said: 'I felt that my mother had intruded into my privacy.

'The pictures were not meant for her eyes. So, she had no business poking her nose into my stuff.'

Happy with attention

However, she was fine about sharing her nude photos with 'all and sundry, even strangers', commented family counsellor Rita Toh, who has been counselling teenagers from broken or single-parent families for five years.

The girl admitted that the contradiction 'never crossed my mind because the others reacted differently from my mother'.

Most of the comments she received on her MSN Spaces blog were positive, with many describing the photos as 'artistic'.

She derived immense pleasure from that knowledge - especially since she was never Miss Popular in school.

While she still does not know if the teachers ever found out about it, she said: 'Some boys actually came up to make friends with me.'

After her mother's intervention, she removed her blog.

This article was first published in The New Paper on Dec 20, 2008.