Teletimes April 2011.pdf

years. Today, worldwide Internet
users are over 600 million users
in Asia, 130 million in Latin
America and the Caribbean, and
50 million in Africa.(Source ITU:
ICT Indicators database2008).
The following graphs depicts
the global Internet subscription
growth in terms of various
modes of Internet provisioning
from 2003-2009. The comparison
is presented separately
for developed and developing
countries. The comparison depicts
that if the mobile internet
subscriptions are on the rise in
developed world then for developing
countries fixed internet
subscriptions are periodically on
the rise too.
Definition of “Child”
Various nations have defined
“child”, However most of the
countries have defined it as
someone below the age of 18. In
Pakistan various definitions of
child exist:
1. According to the Article. 11.
The Constitution of Islamic
Republic of Pakistan, 1973.- S.
3 (1). Definitions.- The Punjab
Destitute and Neglected Children
Act, 2004 (Pb. Act XVIII
of 2004), child is defined as
(e)“child” means a natural
person who has not attained the
age of eighteen years.
2. Also in The Pakistan Penal
Code, 1860 (Act XLV of 1860)
S. 299. Definitions.-
(a) “adult” means a person who
has attained the age of eighteen
years;
(i) “minor” means a person who
is not an adult.
3. Convention 182 of the International
Labour Convention on’
Elimination of the Worst Forms
of Child Labour’ defines a child
as “anyone under the age of 18”.
4. Also The United Nations ‘Optional
Protocol to the Convention
on the Rights of the Child
defines a child as anyone under
the age of 18 unless majority is
attained at an earlier age under
the applicable law.
The definition of a child referred
here within this document is “a
person who is below 18 years of
age”. However it must be kept in
mind that age, grade and gender
of a child also matters as for
instance children with premature
mind sets may often be visiting
the political websites and
activists might be using them
for radical activities in a country.
The same is a very intense issue
as far as Pakistan is concerned.
Similarly according to various
studies both genders exhibit different
patterns of website visits.
Emerging problems
Since internet has no boundaries
so the issue has to be solved
globally. Nevertheless there are
certain problems that relate to
or within the boundaries of a
specific country. It is the responsibility
of every country to flag
such issues so that they could be
dealt in a fair way. For instance
in a developed world a child
may be naïve enough to land
in a website or content which
is not permitted for a child of
his age, and invariably he might
develop a wrong understanding
of things and harm himself. On
the other hand in a developing
country like Pakistan an
immature mind might land into
a website which exhibits racism
and religious discord. These sites
inflict hatred and extremism
which ultimately have daring
consequences on not only that
kid but he might end up in a
suicide attack, thereby harming
himself and hundreds of others.
So this is a different yet imperative
dimension of protecting
young children online.
In this day and age when
children have access to camera
phones, wireless hot spots and
easy-to-hide computer chips
that can store vast collections of
content, they are more vulnerable
to risks, since any and every
kind of information is available
for them and that too all
the times. Children in the age
bracket of 6-14 years are most
vulnerable to risks, one of the
reasons for this is the loss of
the parental control. Parental
control is difficult to emphasize
because in most of the situations,
since in most of the cases
both of the parents are working
and it is kind of difficult for
them to monitor the activities
of their kids. On the other hand
in a developing world there is a
vast majority of parents who are
not educated at all, and mostly
it’s their first generation who is
attending schools or have access
to any sort of online information.
In such cases the parents/
guardians are naive enough to
know what sorts of information
their kid is exposed to? What
could be the potential harms
that this information could
inflict? The kid might be in a
regular contact with a person
or group online, who could very
easily brain wash an immature
mind and the result could be
devastating at the end. Also it
is a very common practice these
days to seek advice online, since
kids would like to share and get
opinions about things which
they might not as otherwise be
comfortable talking with their
parents. So it is very essential
that the content should be
monitored that could potentially
harm minors, and not only
parents but teachers should also
play an active role for identifying
issues and problems that
could threat children.
Importance of Parenting
Parents who are fairly firm and
consistent in their expectations
of how their children should be-
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