While there are many established projects and programmes in developed countries to protect children from accessing explicit and harmful content online, there are very few in the developing world, says the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
To curb this problem, it has started an initiative called Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA), a framework for international cooperation aimed at proposing strategies for solutions to enhance confidence and security in the information society. It builds on existing national and regional initiatives to avoid duplication of efforts and encourage collaboration among all relevant partners, the ITU says.
It has a Child Online Protection initiative within the GCA, targeted at developing countries, which it says, is to reinforce its commitment to connect the world responsibly.
The ITU says this initiative is crucial in areas where it has started initiatives, which support children and young people from developing countries to improve access to, and use of, communication technologies.
Child Online Protection aims to bring together partners from all sectors of the global community to ensure a safe and secure online experience for children everywhere. The organisation says online child protection requires working together to ensure cyber security, enable cyber peace, and protect children online.
ITU secretary-general, Hamadoun Tour'e, says: "In this new digital world, we all have a special responsibility to ensure the safety and security of young people in the online world, just as we do offline".
Local strategy
According to the Film and Publication Board (FPB), SA has done enough in this respect; it says there are sufficient laws to deal with child sexual abuse, for example the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, the Films and Publications Act and the Films and Publications Amendment of 2009
“These amendments contain provisions which place obligations, on operators of social networking sites and other communication networks to which children have access, to take proactive steps to ensure that activities aimed at committing offences, such as sexual abuse, against children are prevented and reported to the law enforcement agencies,” the FPB says.
The amendment also places an obligation on operators to educate users, parents and care givers on safety measures while using their systems, it says.
Despite these laws the FPB says there is also a feeling among various organisations that SA is not doing enough to ensure online child sexual abuse is eliminated. Various non-governmental organisations have proposed a new law be introduced to obligate Internet service providers to filter out pornography on the Internet.
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