Speakers at the fourth National Gender Dialogue on Emerging Child Protection Issues in Ghana have stressed the need for the country to regulate the use of the Internet by children to ensure it is a space for education and empowerment.
The speakers noted that the increased access to the Internet with little or no supervision of children brought about undesirable consequences and had made the fight against online violence a challenge for stakeholders.
The speakers were the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur; the Resident Representative, African Development Bank, Mrs Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade and the UNICEF Representative, Ms Susan Ndongo.
On her part, Nana Oye Lithur said cyber crimes against children include cyber bullying, child pornography, online sexual exploitation and a network of child sex tourism and trafficking.
She said based on a recent research, three per cent of sampled schoolchildren reported exposure to pornographic materials, while 17 per cent responded to ‘sexting’ online with mobile phones in schools and nine per cent reported to have engaged in sexual acts on their phones.
She said an assessment of the current Electronic Transactions Act 2008 revealed that the Act does not adequately address electronic communication with a child for immoral purposes, including enticing a child into sexual inappropriate actions.
“It has become apparent that there is the need to conduct in-depth research about the dangers of the Internet to gain a greater understanding of what the legal reform process should look like,” she said.
One model, the minister said the country could learn from was that of the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Crime Unit established to respond to cyber crimes and support partners with specialists’ capabilities among others.
Nana Oye Lithur said violence against children in all its forms was detrimental not only to the growth and development of the child but also had a severe impact on the nation’s progress, adding that the government would continue to implement measures to strengthen child protection systems across the country.
Mrs Akin-Olugbade, the Resident Representative, African Development Bank, said with the increasing use of the Internet by children, it was important for cyber safety tools to be taught in schools.
Ms Ndongo, the UNICEF representative in Ghana said in 2006, UNICEF commissioned a report to catalogue all forms of abuse against children but that did not include online violence.
She noted that with the emerging issue of cyber violence, there was the need to look at online protection for children.
