The Minister of Communications, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has announced that Ghana would soon criminalise the sharing of inappropriate content on social media platforms.
Addressing stakeholders on the second day of the National week celebration of the Cyber Security Awareness Month 2019 at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) in Accra, Mrs Owusu-Ekuful cited sexual images as an example of inappropriate content, adding that all should comply with the domestic laws, when passed, to avoid being Penalised. penalised
The Minister said there would be sufficient provision in the law to protect children/adolescents from online abuse.
She therefore called on the public to be wary of such messages, delete as soon as they received them, and avoid passing them on.
“Government has increased awareness among children across all the regions and by the end of October, 40 schools would have been reached,” she said adding that cybersecurity policy would be reviewed to meet international standards.
Mrs Owusu-Ekuful explained that most children had become active users of the internet for learning but are unfortunately facing a lot of challenges, which affects their human rights and, therefore, the need to protect them.
She said most of the laws of Ghana were enacted before child online protection came up, as a result, sufficient laws should be put in place to protect children being abused on the internet.
“Government has increased awareness among children across all the regions and by the end of October, 40 schools would have been reached,” she said adding that cybersecurity policy would be reviewed to meet international standards.
The Minister also called on corporate bodies to support government since it was in their collective interest to protect the children.
On her part, the second lady, Hajia Samira Bawumia, said a collaborative effort was essential to protect children from online predators.
Quoting UNICEF’s research done in 2016, she said four out of ten children had seen sexual images and half of the 2000 children used in the survey expressed online abuse by adults.
Source: Citinewsroom
