Photo by Ron Lach
Thank you to Linda Raftree of Plan International USA and the New Tactics community for this conversation! Children have rights, including the right to be protected from violence, exploitation and abuse. Yet, millions of children around the world suffer from threats at home, at school, in their communities. As well as in institutions, while working, or when they are separated from their families. To address this issue, new technology tools are being developed and adapted to support communities’ efforts to protect children. This conversation was an opportunity to learn and share the ways that communities and institutions are using and adopting new technology tools to protect their children.
Putting Technology to Work for Children
These are some examples of how new technology tools can be applied to protect and support the most vulnerable populations of children. In Kenya, communities have adopted a digital birth registration process using mobile phones. Having a legal identity through birth registration gives children greater access to their rights. Birth registration reduces risks of trafficking, child labor, and child marriage. In Benin, communities are using mobile phones to report violence against children. Over 100 reports on physical abuse and child trafficking have been received through this system. It has been used to protect the victims and advocate for improved government resourcing to prevent violence. There is growing evidence that children and youth are using mobile technologies. This includes children and youth who have left their homes to:
- seek work
- escape abuse
- to escape climate change or disaster, or
- escape conflicts.
Children and youth are using mobile technologies to connect with each other and to needed resources. Child helplines within the same country have “harmonized phone numbers” so that children can easily memorize and recall them.
Tactics shared by participants
- DonkIT has overcome the difficulties of distance by using donkeys. They transport resource centers for at-risk children throughout remote desert areas of Sudan.
- In Australia, teachers schedule and manage video conferences between schoolchildren and Kids Helpline counselors. They use an online booking database.
- In Europe, Insafe and Inhope coordinate the Safer Internet Program (link broken) to call attention and respond to potential risks of internet use throughout the region.
- In Sweden, BRIS facilitates child helplines via telephone, mail and online chat.
- Thailand Childline Foundation, the Puenkaew Child Friendly Association, and Plan Thailand established the Caravan Project. The project creates mobile counseling units that transport “art and play therapy” to children affected by the tsunami and in times of telecommunication failure.
- The U.S. film, “What I Have Been Through Is Not Who I Am,” brings the voices of exploited and forgotten children, adult survivors, law enforcement officers and prosecutors from across the country to the attention of our state and federal legislators.
- In Kenya’s Mathare slums, Map Kibera mapped all public defecation areas and presented its findings at a community forum. They demonstrated the lack of clean, open spaces for children to play. As a result, community members worked together to clean up the areas. The local government began installing toilets in the neighborhoods.
How is technology helping communities to protect children?
Participants shared that the technologies their communities use to help protect and empower children. Technologies help greater communication between children and service providers. Make creative expression and advocacy for rights possible. Forms of technology mentioned include:
- emergency hotlines
- email
- peer-to-peer forums
- SMS texting
- photography
- resource centers, and
- digital mapping.
Child helplines enable at-risk children to call a trusted and trained counselor. They can report cases of abuse or endangerment, and seek protection or removal from the situation. One participant shared that after a child connects with a counselor on the hotline, that counselor then assumes the responsibility of “rescue and retrieval” of the child. Services are free. They provide an opportunity for children to advocate for themselves. Advocate before their counselors, local officials, and global reports on children’s rights. Beyond helplines, participants also value the use of SMS texting and other “rapid” technology. This enables immediate recording of abuses and unaccompanied children. Provides for the digitization of birth registration. And mobilization among youth. SMS or video recording of abuses can be empowering for children. They can self-report in their own words and on their own terms.
Benefits of Digitization
Increasing and modernizing birth registration documents children and their rights. In turn this minimizes the ability of human traffickers and other threatening people to exploit and traffic the children. Other digital technologies such as mapping can effectively advocate for children. They can identify harmful environmental patterns. They can present such evidence to powerful officials who can put in place changes. Photography and other art forms also allow youth to express themselves. They can advocate for their rights by documenting oppression. They can appeal to local officials or policymakers. Finally, resource centers allow youth to learn new technological skills. They can connect with each other and find work. These serve to promote their agency and respect within their communities.
What are the biggest challenges and risks in using technology to protect children?
There are challenges and risks of using technology for children’s empowerment. These include maintaining:
- children’s access to protection services
- safety and security of technology
- adult involvement, and
- assessment of programs that strive to protect youth.
Children may have limited access to services and technologies due to threats, location, or a lack of knowledge of available resources. One participant considered gender inequalities and sexism. Asserting that organizers cannot automatically assume that females have safe or equal access to technologies or high levels of literacy. Another participant stressed that internet access alone does not guarantee empowerment. Child protection services should strive to understand and create safe and appropriate spaces for counseling and other responses to abuse. Participants encouraged evaluation of child protective programs. This includes direct feedback from child participants. Involvement of parents is needed to improve both the effectiveness of the programs and children’s safety.
Challenges of Digital Literacy and Access for Children
Reporting violence or other abuses via the internet or SMS text messaging can be dangerous. A third party may intercept or manipulate the relayed information. If affected children are illiterate, this is irrelevant. Participants suggest adult organizers assume responsibility for more strategic planning of programs. Higher levels of digital literacy are needed to prevent ineffective and unequal practices. Some organizations have consultants and published reports that promote safe social networking tactics that protect children from offensive material, coercion, and cyberbullying. To prevent children’s harassment as a consequence of technology use, participants suggested that organizations work to ensure anonymity with:
- maintaining internet security by using firewalls
- password protection, and
- pre-approving contributions before publishing them online.
Many children may not have access to or knowledge of services available to them. Organizations have attempted to engage children living on the streets or in other hostile situations with the following:
- universal helpline numbers
- mobile counseling, and
- youth outreach projects.
Monitoring child protection systems can be challenging. There is not always a clearly defined individual or body responsible for children and upholding their rights. One participant suggested promoting all citizens’ accountability for protecting all children’s rights. This would increase widespread awareness and urgency to advocate for all children in society. Children would be the responsibility of all, not solely belonging to one’s immediate family.
What new opportunities exist for the use of technology for child protection?
Technology offers many progressive opportunities for both protecting and empowering youth. Participants referenced a variety of progressive mediums and uses of technology for child protection ranging from:
- tracking software
- mobile phones
- online chats
- video conferences, and
- voice-based interventions such as radio broadcasts.
As technology advances, participants suggested that mobile apps and social networking will become increasingly relevant for child protective services. Online booking software and video conferences can allow children to confidentially communicate with teachers and trusted counselors regardless of their location or home situations. Regarding vulnerable migrant children or children on the move, ICTs can track their locations. It can connect them with family and friends in their home countries to promote their safety and security
Technology for Self-Expression and Empowerment
In other cases, children use technology to express and empower themselves. One participant cited the success of children’s involvement in video and radio broadcast productions. Children make their voices and opinions heard. Technology enables communication with others who call or text in during a broadcast to share their input or reactions. Participants suggested strengthening institutions that protect children. For example, collaborating with accredited universities, researchers, and other academics. Finally, it is important that programs consider and respond to the concerns and interests of children. This will make it possible to adapt to their needs in a respectable, effective, and even fun manner.
Resources
Blog posts by Linda Raftree of Plan International USA
Child Helpline International
Reports & other publications
- 2011 Australian Overview of Issues Concerning Children and Young People published by Kids Helpline contains more information about the methods young people use to ask for help, including the rising use of mobile phones
- Child Mobility in West and Central Africa, a study by a consortium of child protection groups
- Child Safety Online, a study published by UNICEF’s Innocenti Research Centre in 2011 that examines child sex abuse recorded in images, the grooming of young people for sex, and cyberbullying.
- Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, a study by Henry Jenkins, Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Early Exodus and Child Trafficking in West Africa: What progress have working children and youth made? 2008 report by the African Movement of Working Children and Youth
- Exploring children’s experiences of migration: movement and family relationships, a report on child migrants from the UK’s Centre for Research on Families and Relationships
- Guides and publications from CHILDLINE India that address issues of child protection in India and ways to confront them
- Migrant Documentation Project, Amnesty International that utilizes ICTs to track and protect migrants, including children
- Mobile Technologies for Child Protection, a 2011 briefing note from UNICEF
- Report from the International Conference on Children on the Move (Barcelona, 2010).
- The AMWCY’s 2009 report “From the gong gong to ICTs”
Toolkits and Guides
Wiki pages on the Ushahidi Toolkits and Best Practices for effective organizing and ICT use
