Microsoft hosted a child online safety roundtable yesterday, to commemorate National Children`s Day.
This is the second such discussion, with the first held in Cape Town on 9 September following similar sessions in France, Brazil and Costa Rica earlier this year.
In 2003, Microsoft initiated a partnership with the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children and Interpol to provide training sessions to help combat computer-facilitated crimes against children.
"The training session planning identified a need for dialogue and knowledge sharing around issues of child safety for role-players in SA. Microsoft felt it could facilitate such dialogue and information sharing, and decided to initiate the roundtable forums," said Colin Erasmus, technology security manager at Microsoft SA.
"By partnering with government, law enforcement and industry partners, Microsoft can help provide consumers with the education and tools they need to ensure a safe computing environment."
"We don`t know the exact extent of child pornography locally as we have no proper research facilities to find out," said Ian Melamed, principal consultant at Shaya Technologies. "Child pornography should be recognised as a problem and it`s difficult in a country where violent crime takes up most of the focus."
Gordon Frazer, MD of Microsoft SA, said Microsoft had formed a partnership with the Humania People to People organisation.
Ambassador Mario Cabral said Humania helps children not only with donations, but also with raising HIV/AIDS awareness and organising community clubs and projects involved with issues such as income generation.
"This is a valued partnership for both Humania and Microsoft, because even though Microsoft is a big company, they can`t do this alone - that`s what we`re here for," said Cabral.
"Microsoft`s social security approach is education and awareness, policy and partnership," added Erasmus.
Advocate Thoko Majokweni, special director of public prosecutions at the Sexual Offences and Community Affairs (SOCA) Unit in the National Prosecuting Authority, said SOCA`s biggest achievement since it was founded in 1999 was the establishment of the sexual offences courts.
"Nationally in 2000, a guilty verdict was achieved in only 7.7% of all reported cases. It is important for victims to realise they have to come forward if they`re being abused or exposed to child pornography," said Majokweni. "The main issue to consider in child pornography and exposure of children to legal adult porn is the erosive impact on civic morality."
According to Microsoft, pornography sites account for 3% of total Internet content. "The biggest challenge are actually parents, not the children," said Melamed. "Parents need to be educated on the subject of child pornography as well as how to secure their home PCs from such content. Kids these days tend to be more technologically educated than parents, which means they can overcome weak security systems on their home PCs."
Some of the sites to visit regarding Internet security, safe surfing, child abuse and child pornography prevention are:
www.microsoft.com/security
www.msn.staysafeonline.com
www.microsoft.com/athome/security
http://www.childline.org.za/
The next child online safety roundtable will be held in Durban in February 2005.
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