Still Without Any Progress in Protecting Children from Internet Violence

fb square safer internet dayThis year's February 10 is the Safer Internet Day and its slogan is 'Let's create a better internet together'. The situation in children's protection form Internet violence in Serbia is still very unfavorable. The number of violence cases perpetrated using Internet or information and communication technologies is increasing constantly, esp. among its youngest users.

In 2013, the Provincial Protector of Citizens - Ombudsman (PPCO) implemented the 'Children's Exploitation on the Internet' research survey project supported by the Save the Children International. Its findings indicate that no legal act or a strategic document on the national level does neither recognize nor define children's exploitation by means of information and communication technologies (ICT) as a special form of violence against, harassment or abuse of children. The executive authorities in charge treat this issue primarily as a criminological one, so their proceedings in such matters are focused on penalizing perpetrators of the ICT based child exploitation crime and suppressing it once it has already happened, rather than on its prevention by informing the children and adults and their education on how to use the ICTs properly and preventively.

An additional problem is, for instance, that the Serbian Information Society Development Strategy till 2020 does not mention children at all, namely they are not identified as a separate vulnerable group in the context of children's exploitation by means of ICT. On the other hand, The National Strategy for Prevention and Protection of Children from Violence, as well as the National Action Plan for Children till 2015 do state that children are to be protected from all forms of abuse, neglect, maltreatment and violence, but there is no mention of children's exploitation by means of ICT as a new form of violence that, as both the PPCO practice and several research studies have indicated, has been in expansion over the last decade.

Cyber bullying, so characteristic of the ever more common peer violence among children and youth, has not been recognized as a special kind of children's exploitation. It is important to recognize and define this kind of electronic violence in the regulations for two reasons. The first is to provide for a systemic information and education of children and youth aimed at its prevention. The second is to provide adequate support and protection to its direct and indirect victims.

On its Internet based violations registration page on the www.bezbedaninternet.ombudsmanapv.org website, the PPCO has received a number of complaints concerning violations committed on the Internet, primarily against children. Despite recommendations of the 2013 research study, there are no significant steps forward in protecting children from violence on the Internet. Besides dealing with the systemic proscriptive fallacies, it is of utmost importance to introduce computers as a mandatory subject on all levels of education. It would, instead of teaching simply how to use them, introduce the topic of proper use of ICTs and protecting children from exploitation by their abuse into the curricula. 

The Safer Internet Day is a worldwide initiative organized by Insafe each February with an aim to promote safer and more responsible use of online technologies and mobile phones, esp. among the children and youth.