SCI calls for safe, accessible digital environment for children

By Tobias Lengnan Dapam

Save the Children International (SCI), Nigeria, has called for a safe and accessible digital environment for children to learn and grow up healthy.

Amanuel Mamo Director, Advocacy, Campaign, Communication and Media of Save the Children International Nigeria, stated this on Friday in Abuja to mark the Day of the African Child 2023.

“To this end, the theme for the Day of the African Child 2023, “The Rights of the Child in the Digital Environment” reminds stakeholders and duty bearers to be accountable to progress being made in adopting policies to protect children as well as reflecting on what more needs to be done to effectively promote the right of children for quality, safety and access to e-learning.

“The digital space comes with huge opportunities and challenges for sure, but it brings more prospects if it is maximized for the growth and development of children. The internet has provided invaluable opportunities for the realization of children’s fundamental rights and freedoms such as the right to education, freedom of expression, and freedom of association, among others. However, lack of access to the internet remains a primary challenge to children to meaningfully participating in the digital sphere, especially the children who live in the rural communities, internally displaced children, refugee children and children in conflict affected areas, among others.

“Save the Children calls for law formulation and implementation to tackle violations of children’s rights online through the adoption and domestication of the AU Convention on Cybersecurity and Personal Data (Malabo Convention) and other applicable international instruments and the ECOWAS Directive on Fighting Cyber Crime (2011) which provide for offenses related to child pornography while also firming up appropriate regulatory frameworks to hold businesses accountable where they are found to have participated in online sexual abuse and exploitation.

“Unsafe use of the internet and the digital environment may expose children to risks that, unless managed properly, could undermine their protection, learning, mental and social wellbeing. As the rapid take-up of digital technologies and social media by Africa’s children and young people continues, it is crucial to adopt an approach that minimizes the risks without restricting the considerable opportunities and benefits digital technologies and social media have to offer.

“As we celebrate the Day of African Child today, Save the Children joins the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) to call for the participation of children in decision-making processes using digital technologies presented in a child-friendly format. We support that caregivers and teachers are sufficiently equipped to assist children in safely navigating the digital environment and training for members of law enforcement and the judiciary to empower them in order to comprehensively address issues of child online protection.”

Also speaking, Gumut Edith Nankiling, Advocacy, Campaigns and Policy Manager, Save the Children International, said the discourse on the rights of a child in the digital environment cannot be complete without the safety and security of children in that sphere.

She added that the internet originally was not designed with children in mind hence the need to be proactive in safeguarding the children who are one third users of it.

“Since the inception of technology, there has been a paradigm shift from the analog ways of doing things to the digitalized form. This has positively impacted on children, through learning, playing, socializing and innovations. Digitalization has accelerated the capacity of the African child as they engaged often with the internet.

“Nevertheless, the ills of the digital space dance right in front of us, according to UNICEF, one in three internet users globally are internet users. By this statistics most children are at risk of being exposed to obscene content, cyber bullying, discrimination, hate / violent materials, and impostors for sexual exploitation. These are pararell to the rights of a child.

“The rights of a child in the digital environment provides room for privacy and data protection, freedom expression and information, accessibility, participation and play, protection and safety alongside the UN convention on human rights.”