CHILD PROTECTION WEEK THOUGHT LEADERSHIP PIECE

Protecting children in an ever-evolving Digital World

By Marina Madale, Acting Chief of Corporate Affairs and Sustainability at MTN South Africa

As the country celebrates 30 Years of freedom and democracy, we reflect on National Child Protection Week and the great strides and progress taken in protecting the rights of children in our country.

This year the theme centers around “protecting South African children, 30 years on”, with the government calling upon all South Africans to support Child Protection Week by ensuring that the most vulnerable in our society do not suffer abuse. Noting that it’s in our hands to stop the cycle of neglect, abuse, violence, and exploitation of children.

The internet has created a wonderful new world for learning, working, and playing. The United Nations Children’s Fund has identified that one in three internet users globally is a child. For children, digital technologies are the norm by which they connect, socialise, improve their skills, and expand their horizons. Sometimes though, the internet can be misused, harming children, and infringing their rights.

As an example, the South Africa Films and Publications Amendment Act caters for technological advances, especially online and social-media platforms, with a view to protect children from being exposed to disturbing and harmful media content on all platforms, both online and off.

MTN believes that everyone deserves the benefits of modern connected life, and that all users of our products and services have the right to freely and safely enjoy the connectivity and the related solutions that we offer. We expect our customers to enjoy these rights in a responsible and safe manner. This is especially important when considering the rights of children, who are more vulnerable and depend on adults to safeguard their rights.

One of the risks is the misuse of the internet and digital technologies for the purpose of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Online grooming, sharing of child sexual abuse material, and live streaming of child abuse are crimes against children which are on the rise and that need an urgent, multi-sectoral, and global response. These crimes are usually recorded in the form of digital images or videos, which are very often distributed and perpetually reshared online, victimising children perpetually.

According to UNICEF SA Kids Online Study 53% of the surveyed children judged talking to someone on the internet who they have not met face-to-face as being very risky for children their age; however, 13% viewed this as not risky at all.

Between 7%–9% of children using the internet in South Africa had been subjected to such examples of online child sexual exploitation and abuse, being blackmailed to engage in sexual activities, having their sexual images shared without permission, or being coerced to engage in sexual activities through promises of money or gifts according to the study.

The study further highlighted that 8% of the children in the household survey said that they had shared naked pictures or videos of themselves online– most of those children said they did this for fun, because they were in love or flirting. 9% of children said that they had been offered money or gifts in return for sexual images or videos, 9% to meet in person to do something sexual, and 7% said that their sexual images had been shared without their permission.

MTN has a zero-tolerance approach to the abuse and exploitation of children. To ensure responsible use of digital communications, we have aligned our efforts with the work of global organisations and law enforcement authorities dedicated to managing this complex matter. MTN is a member of several industry association bodies which include child protection provisions in their codes of conduct such as the GSMA Mobile Alliance to combat digital child sexual exploitation, Internet Service Providers Association and Wireless Application Service Providers' Association.

We are actively working to make the internet a safer place for children by using neutral third-party software to block sites hosting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) identified by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), whose remit is to minimise the availability of online sexual abuse content globally. In South Africa, we scanned 29 million URL sites and blocked 690 000 sites confirmed to contained CSAM content in 2023 alone.

As risks of harm continue to evolve and grow exponentially, prevention and protection have become more difficult for governments, public officials, and providers of public services to children, but also for parents and caregivers trying to keep-up with their children’s use of technology. With progress being made towards universal internet connectivity, it is ever more pressing to invest in children’s safety and protection online.

Many of the children who were subjected to online child sexual exploitation and abuse did not tell anyone what had happened. Those who disclosed their abuse tended to turn to people they knew, particularly their friends. Children almost never reported their cases to helplines or the police and more needs to be done to encourage them to do so.

To stop the cycle of neglect, abuse, violence, and exploitation of children, we have zero-rated child helpline services – short code 166. It is in our best interest that we ensure that every South African child is kept safe online and to help children to be children.

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Notes to editor:

The language consistently used by the UNCRC, and our domestic Children’s Act is “the best interests of the child”. Whilst the phrases used in this piece indicating the upholding and protection children’s right are perfectly acceptable, from a messaging perspective we could illustrate our commitment to the UNCRC and human rights norms and standards by using the phrase “best interest of the child”.