By Iddi Yire
Accra, Feb 18, GNA – Mr Alexander Kwamina Afenyo-Markin, the Deputy Majority Leader, has advocated the development of a comprehensive Online Child Protection Policy to protect children from abusers on online social media.
He also urged Parliament to firmly direct the Ministers of the Interior, Communications and Digitization and Gender, Children and Social Protection to expedite work on developing a comprehensive Online Child Protection Policy for adoption and implementation within the future.
Mr Afenyo-Markin, who is also the New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for Efutu, made the appeal on the floor of Parliament in his statement on “The need for Ghana to scale up efforts to clamp down on early Social Media Use by Ghanaian Children.”
He said Social Media consumption among children had induced alarming social and technological challenges, threatening the immediate and future safety of children and future generations.
He said documentary evidence showed that the present and future of the nation’s children were in grave peril if stakeholders did not scale up efforts and measures to protect them from the dangerous hazards of early Social Media use and consumption.
He called on Parliament to lead an amendment to the Cyber Security Act 2020 to impose an obligation on the Cyber Security Authority to submit separate biannual reports to this House for consideration and subsequent action on detailed measures it had taken to specifically safeguard Ghanaian children from the harmful effects of Social Media use and consumption.
He urged the House to draft and pass a new law, through the efforts of private members, prohibiting Ghanaian children under 16 from consuming and or using Social Media.
“In that law, offending parents or guardians–through whose negligence and or acquiescence children consume or use harmful Social Media content or become owners of Social Media accounts–must have punitive fines,” he said.
He said the liability for the offence would be strict, and that it was enough that a person under 16 was seen consuming Social Media or using or opening a prohibited Social Media account.
Mr Afenyo-Markin said it was estimated that over 4.5 billion people around the globe use Social Media as of October 2021.
He noted that other estimates published by business.com suggest that Social Media use had increased sharply since the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Let me hasten to concede that it is indeed the case that Social Media sites can serve as valuable platforms for both adults and children to acquire crucial knowledge, learn new and vital skills, consume valuable news content, and even earn a living through lawful Social Media marketing and content creation,” he said.
“However, the unfortunate reality is that the internet is not always helpful. Indeed, Social Media sites on the internet have become very dangerous and destructive tools and platforms used by perverts belonging to the evil fringes of society to target, victimise, radicalise, and destroy the present and future of innocent or curious or unsuspecting children.”
He said one study identified some of the main negative implications of the use of Social Media by school children as from their studies, “distraction of pupils’ attention frequent use of Pidgin English as well as unnecessary fashion consciousness.”
Mr Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, the Deputy Minority Leader, in his contribution to the statement, lauded Mr Afenyo-Markin for a well researched presentation.
He intimated that there was the need for the strengthening of the Cyber Security Act to protect children from abusers online and to also make the law punitive to punish people who take advantage of children.
Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, the Minister of Communications, advocated the responsible use of social media.
“We do have adequate laws to protect children and ourselves and it is not just our children that are at risk, there are several instances of adults who are also subjected to all manner of cybercriminal activities, either knowingly or unknowingly online,” she said.
GNA