Protect, or empower
[ Home ]While talking about issues concerning child protection, online or
offline, the first questions we may need to ask ourselves are probably:
how well do we know our targets? How many of us still remember what it
was like when we were children ourselves?
While most guidance
focuses on the means families, schools, civil society and governments
should employ to protect children from cybercrime and threats on the
Internet, how close do we actually come to reaching those children whom
we aim to protect?
We very often try to standardize or halt the
activities of children in order to keep them away from the possible
online and offline dangers we can foresee. However, we do this without
realizing that such preaching techniques barely worked on us when we
were children. It is indeed true that vulnerable social groups
distinguished by age, gender, ethnic origin and disabilities need
greater attention and protection, but there is also the question of how
best to act for them.
Children, for example, although immature,
are still intellectual. It may not be mere unawareness but also
irresponsibility to themselves and others that can bring them and other
children into a dangerous situation. Remember how as children we tried
doing things that were not allowed or suggested by adults, and kept them
hidden. It is not always because, as a child, we did not know about
making a right judgment at all, but more likely because children are
little taught about their responsibility in their behavior online and
offline.
It is clear that the vulnerable are at the same time an
important part of the social climate, influencing on others.
Furthermore, the vulnerable may also contribute to threats sometimes by
creating passive negative effects on others. This is demonstrated by the
fact that children may hurt themselves as well as each other. Threats
on the Internet such as cyberbullying, grooming and luring also occur
among children and teenagers. The best way to help them is therefore not
to focus only on their vulnerabilities but also on their potential.
Risks
and dangers to children on the Internet are generally identified in
time, but warnings and disapprovals alone are not sufficient for
prevention. Children should be empowered with knowledge to assume their
responsibilities to themselves, their families, friends, and other
children around them, online and offline. When they face cyber threats,
they should be seen not as mere targets that need protection in the
environment, as this often makes them feel deprived of their free
interests by being put in a passive position; but more importantly, they
should also be considered as contributing members to the environment
and as a part of that environment itself. Families and societies need to
warn children about dangers online as well as encouraging them to
protect themselves and other children around them. It is important for
children to realize the importance of their judgment and behaviors from
little things, and that they are not passive, but active; maybe
vulnerable, but also defensive, online and in real life.
It is
with one of these lessons of growing up that we all learn to behave
responsibly. Children also assume their responsibilities better when
they realize their influence and importance as contributing members of
the environment in which they live; it is an essential part of
education, which forms their confidence and maturity, and when they have
that, they also know better how to protect themselves as well as those
around them, online and in real life.
The justification of one crime, or another
Connect the world, connect people, with a better
You still will be saying nothing