A new continent-wide law to protect children and youth from sexual violence, grooming, cyber bullying, and trafficking across online platforms is on the cards.

This emerged during a panel discussion titled “Brave Movement – Beyond the Screen: AI (artificial intelligence), Online Safety, and Skills for a Safer Digital Future” at the Y20 Summit at the Birchwood Hotel in Ekurhuleni on Wednesday.

ChildFund International’s senior advocacy manager: Africa and liaison to the African Union, Joshua Ongwae, said the international development organisation was supporting the continental body to develop a model law on child and youth online safety, and that it will be finalised by the end of the coming year.

He stated that child online safety is a transnational issue requiring collaboration among African countries.

According to Ongwae, they also encourage tech developers to adopt safety by design, which has a section in the proposed model law.

He explained that the initiative started with sexual violence but now included grooming, cyber bullying, and trafficking.

“Once the model law is approved, young people advocate in their countries and ensure that there is budget allocation for child and youth online safety,” Ongwae added.

He said the model law was still open to adding many other issues, which were raised at the summit.

However, Ongwae also noted that they were conscious that the model law is not used to ban people from expressing themselves as well as political speech.

Sheila Makhado of the Brave Movement, a global movement of survivors and allies working to end sexual violence against children and adolescents, said not much action is taken against online violence and not only cyber bullying and doxxing.

She said the perpetrators were professional and they hack phones, but there are no repercussions.

“If it does not stop with me, it will definitely continue with the next person,” warned Makhado.

She added that all users had a duty to create a safe environment online and always be aware of safety features of the platforms they use.

Bhavna Lutchman of Childline South Africa said online child sexual exploitation has changed and with the advent of AI, the changes are immense with deep fakes and misinformation.

“We need to start changing how we think about things,” she said.

Lutchman said as the internet does not come with an instruction manual, digital literacy and skills are needed to maintain children’s safety online.

loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za

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