Child safety in the online environment has become a subject of strategic planning in the agenda of public authorities

International Centre La Strada Moldova in partnership with the Soros Moldova Foundation have organized a presentation of public policy research on “Child Safety Online. How can the state response be improved in order to prevent and combat online sexual abuse of children?”. The research was conducted by Elena Botezatu within the Public Policy Fellowship project of the Soros Moldova Foundation.

The event took place in the context of the expiry of a big majority of national policy documents that regulate child online safety, these either expired already or will expire by the end of the year. The only document still available in this context is the “Information security strategy of the Republic of Moldova for the years 2019-2024”.

At the event participated several representatives of governmental institutions and civil society organizations: The Ministry of Health, Labour and Social Protection; Ministry of Internal Affairs; Ministry of External Affairs and European Integration; Ministry of Education, Culture and research; Ministry of Justice; Ministry of Finance; Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure; General Prosecutor’s Office; State Chancellery etc.

The majority of the participants in the discussion agreed that, for the Republic of Moldova, the most suitable method to ensure the continuity of policies regarding the protection of children’s rights in the online environment would be to create a distinct program. In the opinion of specialists, this would serve as a framework for the action plans of the entities involved in the implementation of policies in the field of child online safety.

“In present day conditions and in the light of the pandemic, the subject is extremely important because it is related to the education and the personal development of children. The Strategy for Child Protection for the years 2014-2020 is about to expire, and the Ministry of Health is now in the process of elaboration of the Child Protection Program. In this context, we already have consolidated internal visions – we decided to include the subject of child online safety as a specific objective in the program that we are due to develop alongside La Strada” said Djulieta POPESCU, State Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Social Protection.

It is certain that the future policy document will need to include clear mechanisms and actions that would remove the identified gaps in the field of child online safety:

• Low level of understanding of the subject by the representatives of the public authorities, which is confirmed by the constant mix-up between “online safety” and “cyber-security” in almost all public policy documents in the field;

•  Low level of knowledge and expertise among specialists from public authorities responsible for the implementation of actions in the field of online safety;

• Lack of a coordination and monitoring mechanism for public policy documents;

• Absence of cooperation indicators between authorities; information discrepancy, absence of relevant reported data according to the set performance indicators.

In the opinion of Elena BOTEZATU, the Director of the Issues Affecting Children Program within IC La Strada Moldova and author of the research, the lack of capacities and the problems related to human resources directly influence the quality of the information provided in the implementation reports of the action plans in the field of child online safety. “A lot of the data is contradictory; they are not relevant or do not relate to the indicators planned. And this is a consequence of the fact that child online safety has been approached only superficially, despite some actions being implemented”.

“The pandemic has forced us to reduce offline communication and transferred the whole world, young and old, into the online environment. If adults are fairly well informed about the risks of the online, children on the other hand are very vulnerable, especially because they don’t receive the necessary information neither in school, nor in the family. It is important to consider the fact that this problem will only keep growing. One of the main factors being the amazing progress of information technology and the, sometimes unlimited, access of children to various digital devices. Because of this, the role of the public authorities is extremely important. The state needs to come up with an intervention strategy coordinated at inter-institutional level and a set of exact measures to prevent and combat online abuse of children. These interventions must ensure the emotional, physical and sexual wellbeing of the child in the online environment” said Natalia CAMBURIAN, director of the Good Governance Program of the Soros Moldova Foundation.

“The dialogue from today’s workshop is proof that we can mobilize. There are clear signs that we are beginning to see the problem of child abuse online from a larger perspective. We understand that online safety is about children and not devices, thus it is about behaviors, attitudes and needs of the children. Therefore, this is the right moment to insist on this approach and more forward with appropriate measures to address this problem” specified Ana REVENCO, Executive Director of La Strada Moldova.

The research shows that, in the international public policy documents, child safety online is either the subject of thematic policies in the field, or it is integrated within documents with a broader topic, for example – protection of children’s rights. It is recommended to clearly delimit the measures intended to contribute to child online safety, which focus on the emotional, physical and sexual well-being of the child online from the ones that refer to the online security and protection of information systems, information and devices the child has access to.

Currently, measures on child protection online and promoting child online safety are approached in a segmented manner in various policy documents, with no logical link between them. This creates obstacles in the evaluation of the impact the policies have in the field of child online safety, in determining the positive dynamic in the field of interest and in making the results obtained more efficient etc.

The public policy research “Child online safety. How can the state response be improved in order to prevent and combat the online sexual abuse of children?” has been elaborated within the project “Public Policy Fellowship” implemented by the Good Governance Department of the Soros-Moldova Foundation.

The complete research can be accessed at: https://cutt.ly/AhebJyP