TANZANIAN GOVERNMENT LAUNCHES CHILD ONLINE PROTECTION CAMPAIGN
February 19th 2024
The Ministry of Community Development, Gender, Women and Special Groups has launched a national advisory committee and the campaign on Child Online Protection (COP) to raise awareness of the types of crime that children are exposed to in the cyberspace.
The Campaign is set to focus on educating the children, parents, teachers and society in general about the role that parents, guardians and teachers need to play to protect children in cyberspace and at the same time provides avenues of redress should one encounter cyber-crime. Dubbed protecting children is a collective responsibility; Take Action.
Speaking during the launch of the campaign on February 10, 2024 in Dodoma, Minister Dr. Dorothy Gwajima has stressed the important issues for parents or guardians to pay particular attention to fulfilling their responsibility to raise children and accurately monitor the use of electronic devices especially during holidays so that the children can be safer online.
“Parents or Guardians should limit the amount of time spent on electronic devices, especially television, to avoid the epidemic of addiction and give time to the child to do homework and study. Make sure the child uses electronic devices under close supervision so as not to get involved in networks that are danger to the safety of the Child.” So says Dr. Gwajima
She has also encouraged Parents or Guardians to allow children to participate on existing platforms in schools, namely Children’s Forums at school and Child Protection Desks to build capacity on various issues that concern them.
Minister Dr. Gwajima has pointed out about the research carried out by the Government in collaboration with UNICEF in 2022 for Tanzanian children aged 12 to 17 years which showed that 67 percent of children use the internet and 4 percent of those children were subjected to different types of violence on the internet including meeting and criminals who contacted them through networks.
In addition, she has said that in response to the challenge of misuse of the Internet by children, the Ministry in collaboration with the Stakeholders of the National Advisory Committee that includes Directors or Assistant Directors from the Government, Non-Governmental Organizations and the Private Sector as well as a working group of experts in the coordination of implementation of an action plan to protect children from online violence.
Speaking at the launch, the Deputy Minister of Information, Communications and Information Technology Hon. Kundo Mathew has said that the presence of artificial intelligence technology is important for the development of communication in the Nation but it comes with its own challenges that require a high level of attention in solving them.
“The Ministry of Information and Communications will give this campaign due weight in order to produce the right results including policy making by involving all stakeholders in parallel and meeting the digital needs at the time we have,” said Kundo.
Yusuph Kileo, A cybersecurity and digital forensics expert stresses that, Digital access exposes children to a wealth of benefits and opportunities, but also to a host of risks including access to harmful content, sexual exploitation and abuse, cyber bullying, and misuse of their private information. He urged everyone to know the risks and how to protect themselves against those risks.
On his part, the Chairman of the Children’s Council of Tanzania, Raphael Charles, has urged children to ensure that they use social networks by following the guidelines of parents and guardians to avoid violence that continues in social networks.
The Child Online Protection (COP) campaign will run for a period of one year in electronic, print, outdoor and online media providing holistic approach where awareness, reviewing of laws and policy related to children, and looking at the control of inappropriate content for children through technology is well observed to provide end to end solution of keeping children safer online.
Source: Daily News
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