Vincent Odotei Sowah – Deputy Minister of Communications
Representatives from a number of African nations have rallied in Accra, the capital of Ghana, for a forum on child online protection in Africa.
Participants for the three-day forum taking place at the Kofi Annan International Peace-keeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) are drawn from countries such as Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Côte d’ Ivoire, among others.
In a keynote address delivered on her behalf at the opening ceremony of the forum on Monday, October 28, 2019, Ghana’s Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, urged African nations to make the protection of children online fundamental to their cyber security efforts.
She told representatives of the participating countries that protecting African children online must be given even greater priority than their physical security or at best must receive the same attention.
*Touching on why more efforts are required to ensure safety of children online, she said the increasing availability and accessibility to internet enabled mobile devices and social media was a lure children cannot resist.
“It is imperative for us to guide our children to utilize these tools in a manner that minimizes or eliminates the inherent dangers therein,” according to the Minister in her speech read on her behalf by her Deputy, Vincent Odetei-Sowah.
The Africa Child Online Protection Forum is being organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as part of the National Cyber Security Awareness Month 2019.
According to her, the digital age is fast evolving and its pervasive nature has infused and impacted every fabric of Africans lives.
The benefits of connectivity to the internet are immense for a number of reasons; chief among them being the opportunity for education and cognitive development, she said.
“Let’s face it. our children are increasingly more tech savvy than we are, however, many are oblivious of the dangers lurking in cyberspace and in their quest to explore and learn new things, may unwittingly fall victim. Unguided, our children, our future, stand a great risk of falling prey to the ills that plague the digital economy as the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) can be a double edged sword,” the Minister noted.
According to the Global System for Mobile Communications 2019 global report, there were 185 million unique mobile subscribers in West Africa in 2018, 10 million more than there were a year ago.
The Minister said the figure will continue to grow, largely driven by young consumers owning a mobile phone for the first time, as more than 40% of the sub-region’s population is under 18.
Additionally, mobile data usage is also expected to grow seven-fold across the wider Sub-Saharan Region.
“Fuelling this increasing access to the internet are our young people children, going online to learn, network, interact, build and sharpen their skills,” she said.
Ghana, she said, was introducing additional measures including legislative reforms to ensure perpetrators of online crimes against children are properly dealt with.
The National Cybersecurity Advisor, Dr. Albert Antwi-Boasiako, in his welcome address, emphasized that the ITU has consistently provided guidance and best practice models to support nations to develop their ICT ecosystem, including cybersecurity.
“I do recall that, the first Ghana’s Child Online Protection framework which was developed in 2015 was entirely based on the ITU COP model,” he said.
According to him, subsequently, the ITU’s model has provided the foundation for the development of other best practice models and systems, supporting countries across the continent to implement relevant mechanisms to strengthen the protection of children against malicious contents, contacts as well as the conducts of children as users of the internet.
He added that it is therefore important that, we continue to engage and interrogate on these very foundations, towards improving our collective response to the child online safety issues.
The Ghana National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has implemented a number of Child Online Protection interventions with our strategic partners, especially UNICEF, Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and the Ministry of Education, he noted.
He said these initiatives include a baseline research/study on COP issues and trends among Ghanaian children, awareness creation through the Safer Digital Ghana Campaign, the establishment and operationalization of a COP Unit within the National Cyber Security Centre, Review of Ghana’s National COP Framework, introduction of legislation to strengthen Child Protection Online and the launch of Points of Contact to allow for the reporting of incidents involving child online safety risks.
BY Melvin Tarlue