Teletimes April 2011.pdf

1972). “Treat them (children) as
though they were young adult.
Dress them; bathe them with
care and circumspection. Let
your behavior always be objective
and kindly firm” (Watson,
1928).
Child Online Protection –ITU
Concepts and Concerns
With the growing advent of
contemporary internet technologies,
the scale of use and online
threats has also galvanized.
These threats are not only harming
minors but also resulting
in damaging the confidence of
parents, and the last they can
think of is banning the kid from
Internet accessibility. This might
not pose a very good solution,
since internet on the other hand
is also adding to the knowledge
of the kids, and in this day and
age when the use of libraries is
scarce and most of the knowledge
that children acquire is
either through schools, parents
or internet or any other communication
media that is available
to them, it should be considered
important to regulate the access
of information to these kids, by
scrutinizing first what should be
termed right and what should
be termed wrong for them. It
may also be kept in kind that
according to various surveys the
children that are most at risk are
among the age group of 6-14
years because of the neglect of
parental control.
ITU has sketched a vivid picture
of the actors involved in the
measurement of Child Online
Protection and relationship between
these actors. These actors
involve Children, Parents and
Guardians, Educators, Governments,
Industry Players and
perpetrators.
The ease with which information
can be accessed via cyber
space has several social and
cultural ramifications. Some
of the online threats faced by
Children are.
a. Sexual Abuse
While on-line world exploration
opens a whole new world of opportunities
for children, expanding
their horizons and enhancing
their knowledge and vision, it
is widely believed that they can
also be exposed to dangers as
they drive on the road of Internet,
the information highway.
There have been number of
incidents where individuals have
attempted to sexually exploit
children through the use of online
services and the Internet.
These individuals gain necessary
attention gradually through use
of affection, kindness, and even
gifts. These individuals attempt
to gradually attain the concentration
of these new users of
online-world by slowly introducing
sexual context and content
into their conversations.
b. Privacy Issue
Children are a highly marketed
segment of the consumer
population. Advertisers and
marketers can use the Internet
to target children and gather
personal information from them
for marketing purposes. Furthermore,
the present boom of
social networking has also raised
the concern of privacy among
teenagers where at times they
are not at all aware of what kind
of information should be posted
by them and what number of
audience may fetch their private
information. Here in Pakistan a
number of such complaints have
been received where some very
private information of kids was
shared online resulting in deep
stress to parents.
When children visit commercial
web sites, they might be tempted
to fill out surveys, exchange
12 www.teletimesinternational.com
15Apr - 14May 2011