More and more children and young people are online and for longer periods of time. This is beneficial as they gain access to information, communication, entertainment, and culture, which aid in their development. However, this also poses risks because it opens new opportunities for abusers to perpetuate abuse and exploitation.
Violence in cyberspace can include the following:
- Prevalence of child abuse online images or child pornography
- Exposure to harmful content such as pornographic material
- Vulnerability to grooming for sexual abuse
- Incidence of cyberbullying/online harassment
All children and young people should have the opportunity to safely connect to the internet without discrimination or exclusion. They need to understand concepts of child rights, participation, acceptance of expression of views divergent from their own, and the right to be protected against violence and abuse.
UNICEF East Asia Pacific Regional Office and Child Rights Coalition Asia partnered in a project that aims to increase awareness of these concepts by developing and distributing child-friendly online safety materials through the active involvement of children. Adolescents boys and girls (10-19 years old) are the main target of communication because of their online media consumption and because of their characteristic to explore and pull away from their parents.
On 26-29 February, 16 children (8 boys and 8 girls) from Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam provided inputs on the implementation of the project during the Regional Consultation on the Development of Online Child Safety Materials held in Bangkok, Thailand. Through workshops, the children came up with the campaign call “#SafeWeb4Kids” which aims to communicate that children can protect themselves and their peers from violence in cyberspace.
The following specific messages were also culled from the participants:
- We can be responsible users of technology
- We can protect ourselves online
- We can be good role models to other children
- We can act against cyberbullying
- We can always seek help
(More photos of the event here.)
As a result of the regional consultation, CRC Asia created an illustrated child-friendly IEC material to provide detailed examples on how children can maintain their privacy, seek help, and exercise caution while using the Internet. The IEC material was reviewed by CRC Asia members, UNICEF, and other experts, and was pre-tested with children through focus group discussions. The IEC material will be published in eight (8) languages: English, Traditional Chinese, Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysia, Filipino, Khmer, Thai, and Vietnamese.
(Get your advance copy of “SafeWeb4Kids: Children’s Guide to Online Safety” here. Please stay tuned for the translated versions.)
During the Bangkok regional consultation, children were also taught how to create short videos to better convey online safety advocacy messages. In just half a day, the children produced eight (8) rough one-minute videos which they had a chance to refine after the conference.
The final videos were conceptualized, produced, and critiqued by the children, with the help of filmmakers and CRC Asia member organizations and will be launched soon. These videos serve as the children’s advocacy tools for the #SafeWeb4Kids campaign.
The #SafeWeb4Kids regional campaign runs in solidarity with UNICEF’s global #ReplyForAll campaign to #EndViolence online.
