Internet dangers to children
How may children be protected from the
dangers that can be involved in using the internet?
The
main threats that can face children using the internet are reckoned to consist
of enticement to use illegal drugs and trafficking, sexual exploitation of
minors, bullying, and incitement of ethnic and religious hatred.
These
problems were the subject of discussion by government and NGO representatives
at a press conference on Crimes and Content on the Internet: Facts and Figures
for 2011, which was held as part of the Week of Internet Security. According to
the Council of the Russian Federation there are estimated to be 12 million
minors who are active users of the internet. The chair of the council’s
committee on information policy, Lyudmila
Narusova, has observed that the vigorous growth of the Web points to the
need for children to be protected from the threats that ‘can rain down upon
them from that source’. Not long ago at second reading in the State Duma
amendments to the Criminal Code and the
Criminal Procedure Code aimed at increasing the liability for the commission of
crimes of a sexual nature against children were approved. She remarked that the
amendments would not affect the situation regarding the spread of child
pornography. There was no definition of child pornography in the bill nor were
there provisions concerning the use of the internet by paedophiles with a view
to subjecting children to sexual violence.
The
co-ordinator of the Centre for Internet Security in Russia, Urvan Parfentev,
commented that pornography was defined in the Protection of Children from
Information Prejudicial to Their Health and Development Law which came into
force on 1 September 2012. There is, however, no definition of ‘child’
pornography in that law either. Furthermore, Russia has in the meantime failed
to sign a number of international conventions dealing with child protection,
according to Ms Narusova. These are the Convention on the Rights of the Child
and the Council of Europe’s Convention on the Protection of Children from
Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse. However, the number of crimes committed
against children is rising every year. Ms Narusova said that whilst 160 cases
of child abuse were recorded in 2000, 4,479 were in 2008. The number of
websites containing child pornography had grown by a multiple of 25 during the
same period.
Mr
Parfentev said that the most frequent calls to the internet security centre’s
hotline concerned child pornography and the distribution of drugs. Information
about illegal content on the internet may be passed on anonymously and quickly
using the site: http://www.saferunet.ru
http://www.saferunet.ru/_blank_
http://www.asi.org.ru/ASI3%5Crws_asi.nsf/va_WebPages/3158F566CF1B84E344257996004CF9A3Rus