By Francis Tayanjah Phiri:
Deep in the slums of Ndirande, Blantyre City’s popular ghetto, video showrooms are one of the features that catch one’s eye.
Many would feel that what the viewers are shown are videos on the posters displayed outside.
Go inside, especially at night, and you get a shocker. Many of the video showrooms show pornography late into the night. Sadly, some of the patrons are children.
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This is the sad reality of many video showrooms across the country.
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And it is not only video showrooms that are culprits; the internet is quickly becoming another port of exposure to pornography by youngsters. With that also comes cyberbullying – where some adults send crude and obscene photos and messages to youngsters.
Simply put, cyberbullying is one of the most common threats facing children online. It can occur through the use of text messages, email, online games, chat apps, social media and other online fora.
One of Malawi’s child rights activists Boniface Mandele feels the situation is getting out of hand, hence the need for close monitoring of what children access on the internet and in video showrooms.
“We cannot deny children access to the social media but there is a need to ensure that they are safe. Our children face a lot of violence and, of late, the internet has been turning into one of the violent platforms child abuse,” he says.
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Mandele, whose organisation Article 3 is one of the stakeholders in child online protection advocacy, adds that parents and community members should be vigilant in monitoring what children and young adults access on the internet.
“Children should, for instance, be advised to report to parents, teachers and other adults, including the authorities, whenever they receive requests from unknown people. To achieve that, there is a need for proper training on online threats,” he points out.
Against such a background, the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra), along with other stakeholders, have been emphasising the need for urgent interventions.
“The reality today is that our children and young adults can be described as members of the digital generation, as they were born and are raised in an environment where they have access to digital information. They also have the ability to navigate new communication technologies,” Macra Broadcasting Manager Matilda Kanjeri says.
Kanjeri adds that digital connectivity comes with its own risks.
“This exposure also comes with harm. The anonymous nature of the internet allows for misrepresentations and manipulations, which put children and young adults at risk because of their easy-trusting nature,” she adds.
Among the interventions, Macra has just validated the Child Online Protection Strategy, which it developed with technical assistance from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
According to Kanjeri, the Child Online Protection Strategy was developed in response to the changing communication landscape, which has seen a migration of livelihoods to the cyberspace, placing children and young adults as one of the most vulnerable groups in society and requiring deliberate measures to ensure their online safety.
She too says all adults, duty bearers and stakeholders are bound by common duty to ensure the protection of children from any form of exploitation.
“If we are to succeed in keeping our children safe online, then we all have to play our part,” she says.
A new global report from The Global Cybersecurity Forum (GCF) has equally found that 72 percent of children around the world have experienced at least one type of cyber threat online.
The ‘Why Children Are Unsafe in Cyberspace’ report, developed in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group, focuses on raising awareness on the critical issues facing the protection of children in cyberspace, at a time over 90 percent of children aged eight and above are active on the internet.
The report surveyed over 40,000 parents and children, across 24 countries in six regions, with results overwhelmingly showing that protection of today’s youths in the cyberspace is falling short, impacting children globally and requiring urgent collective action.
Though Malawi has not had a survey on children’s cyber abuse, the risk is generally high, considering the adoption of the use of phone gadgets and social media outlets.
This solidifies the need for vigilance in monitoring children’s use of social media, including patronage to video showrooms, where they can easily be manipulated by unnecessary content, pornography and abusive language.
