Nompilo Morafo is the chief sustainability and corporate affairs officer at MTN Group
One in three internet users is a child, states a Unicef report that explores children’s risks and opportunities in the digital age. Covid-19 has undoubtedly accelerated the rate of digitisation, allowing more African children to participate in the digital economy. This is a welcome development but unfortunately it creates risks that result in the exploitation of minors and needs to be managed. This is not only a prerogative for MTN as we help drive digital inclusion, particularly of the marginalised, but one that needs to be taken seriously by all in Africa and globally.
The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift to online technology in Africa, but there remains great disparity between those who are connected and those who are not. Concurrently, the digitisation of the continent has given rise to some of the worst forms of child exploitation and abuse, including the spread of harmful online content, such as child sexual abuse material.
Between 2019 to 2020, the number of reports received by the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children of child sexual abuse images and videos uploaded from the African continent grew by a staggering 81% to almost 2.4-million. We can only imagine what that picture will look like in 2022. Globally, in 2021, the Internet Watch Foundation saw a 374% increase of child sexual abuse material compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Shock share, a phenomenon used to describe the resharing of illegal content out of “outrage, horror or shock”, is a significant contributor to the spread of child sexual abuse material online. This warrants public education on the unintended ills of resharing content to address an issue as it leads to the re-victimisation of children whose abuse has been recorded and continues to be shared online. How such content is reported is also important to know.
As Africa’s largest mobile network operator, we believe we have a role to play in ensuring child safety online. We have joined forces with the Internet Watch Foundation to launch the Child Safety Online Africa Portal, a reporting mechanism to help prevent the spread of material online. We are a long-term partner and member of the foundation, embedding their cutting-edge services to help prevent the spread of child sexual abuse material by blocking images of child sexual abuse online. In 2021 alone, we managed to block thousands of URLs through this process.
As a continent, we have openly discussed and actively addressed societal issues such as gender-based violence that we know are rife. Unfortunately, little attention has been given to issues relating to child sexual abuse material online. In some instances, the topic is considered taboo, and people often believe there are repercussions for reporting illegal child sexual abuse content online, or for the children concerned. The Child Safety Online Africa Portal provides an option for the general public to either remain anonymous or to disclose their identity, in case they want to follow up on the case they reported.
Help Children be Children, a campaign that will help train law enforcement officials and child helpline staff on the continent, positively impact policy through roundtables and encourage key actors, including the industry, to join the global fight against the spread of child sexual abuse material online. This initiative was been launched by MTN, the Internet Watch Foundation, Meta, the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, Child Helpline International and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime to raise the importance of this issue
While all these initiatives are an important starting point, more needs to be done to advance this necessary dialogue. A concerted effort by all key stakeholders in the fields of child protection, cybersecurity, policymaking, the technology industry and the public at large is required. A child tormented by sexual abuse lives a life of sadness, fear, humiliation and anxiety. Urgent interventions such as the Child Safety Online Africa Portal are needed to eradicate the spread of child abuse sexual material online on the continent and ensure that the rights of our future generations are protected. — Nompilo Morafo is the chief sustainability and corporate affairs officer at MTN Group