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04.11.2009Child On line Protection Guidelines
During the ITU Telecom World conference in Geneva, the ITU presented the Global Guidelines on Child Online Protection. The expertise of the partners in the Child Online Protection Initiative was used to create four sets of guidelines: for Governments, for Business, for Educators and Parents and for Children. The Guidelines can be used to start programmes on child online protection, advocate with government and business work on the issue. All stakeholders are encouraged to use their guidelines in their work and to make sure that children can have a safe on line experience.
With billions of people having access to internet and its rate of growth increasing especially in developing countries, the internet is a global phenomenon. Children are amongst the first to take to the internet. There they can encounter several risks, such as bullying by peers, predators and inappropriate content. It is essential to protect children so that they have a safe experience on line. To this end, a holistic approach should be taken that involves all parties concerned: industry, governments, civil society, including child helplines, parents and educators as well as the children themselves. By bringing together the organisations from different sectors, the COP initiative wants to use the existing experience and expertise and make it available to more people. Child Helpline International will use this provide knowledge and information from the child helplines to strengthen this initiative and help keep children safe on line. Also, this is a great opportunity to raise awareness with partners of the initiative and outside the network about child helplines and their important work to keep children safe on line and off line. Child Helpline International was invited to join the Child On line Protection (COP) Initiative in May 2009. The COP initiative want to raise awareness, provide information and tools to all stakeholders to prevent and address the risks that children face on line. Many other international organisations are also part of the COP initiative, such as ICMEC, the GSMA, Interpol, Save the Children, the European Commission, Unicef and several other UN agencies. The COP initiative is the first truly global network to protect children on line and address the risks that they are facing by bringing together organisations from different sectors. The Guidelines can be found on the website of the ITU Child Online Initiative |
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