Internet safety campaign launched to protect children

Inquirer News Service, Agence France-Presse

Child pornography on the Internet is surging and threatens to expose millions to sexual abuse if the IT industry and governments do not take urgent measures, warned a global campaign launched Monday. Children's organizations in 67 countries have joined together to launch the "make-IT-safe" campaign.

"It's a growing problem, and it's a global problem," Carmen Madrinan, executive director of Bangkok-based ECPAT International, which helps monitor child protection issues for the United Nations.

ECPAT, which is spearheading the initiative along with London-based Children's Charities Coalition for Internet Safety (CHIS), "calls on the Internet and hi technology sectors to take responsibility that its goods and services are safe for children everywhere," Madrinan said.

The campaign demands the information technology industry create a global child protection lobby, fund research of technological tools to combat sexual abuse, and support child protection campaigns in the world's major languages.

Most nations, especially in the developing world, lack laws criminalizing child pornography and do not have sufficient capacity among police to crack down on abuse, said Madrinan.

The Internet has sparked enormous growth in child exploitation including through prostitution, sex tourism and trafficking, and by pedophiles using it to stalk children, the United Nations concluded last year at a Bangkok conference.

While some positive steps have been taken, including the shutdown of some chat rooms, CHIS spokesman John Carr said online industries have come up short.

"When dealing with issues such as spam, viruses, phishing and other threats, the Internet and online industries have shown a great willingness and a great ability to come together to develop common technical standards and protocols," Carr said.

"This has simply not happened in the field of child protection. This must change."

In the Philippines, a research center commissioned by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) to write a book on child pornography said local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were uncooperative.

"We were so frustrated with ISPs. They were uncooperative and they did not want to talk with us; not a single interview was granted," the Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Elizabeth Protacio-De Castro of the Center for Integrative and Development Studies of the University of the Philippines.

Advances in technology, including the ease of anonymously putting up and shutting down child pornography websites, is helping sex offenders stay one step ahead of authorities.

New digital cameras, webcams and mobile telephone cameras are also making it easier to record child abuse and distribute the images.

Key areas of concern are Belarus, Russia, the United States, and Asia, which leads the world in the number of people online with more than 300 million users, Madrinan said.