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Excellencies, Ministers,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning,
I am delighted to chair this session entitled “Be Safe Online: A Call to Action”.
As the number of children accessing the Internet increases, so, too, does the likelihood that these youth will be exposed to inappropriate Web sites or encounter dangerous situations online.
We all know that the Internet keeps evolving. For example, two years ago very few of us had heard of Social Networks but now, literally millions of people have profiles or web pages on such sites. This new type of site activity is all about getting yourself noticed and meeting new friends, and children are automatically attracted to such sites, although their parents may find it difficult to understand why.
Children and teenagers can get a lot of benefit from being online, but they also can be targets of crime and exploitation in the new environment. A great deal of content exists on the internet that is not appropriate for children. This content can include
• nudity or other sexually explicit material;
• hate group or racist web sites;
• promotional material about tobacco, alcohol, or drugs;
• graphic violence;
• information on satanic or cult groups;
• or even recipes for making bombs or other explosives.
Some of the potential risks of unsupervised online activity include:
• Becoming a target of cyberbullying or harassment that includes repeated and unwanted contact through the internet that is rude or threatening.
• Receiving viruses from other computers that could damage or destroy your hard drive.
• Exposure to sexual predators who use the Internet to try to reach out to children for sexual purposes.
Sexual predators may target children online while maintaining relative anonymity. The nature of online interaction allows deception about the predator's identity, age, and intentions. Millions of children online form a large pool from which predators can select victims.
Therefore, while the virtual world has exciting possibilities for our children to nurture and grow as creative and productive adults, we must mind the pitfalls that could scar them for life.
The World Summit on the Information Society called for strengthened action to protect children from abuse online and defend their rights. And ITU, which has the mandate to build confidence and security in the use of ICTs, within the framework of its Global Cybersecurity Agenda, is not just committed to connecting the world, but committed to connecting the world responsibly. That means working together to ensure cybersecurity, enable cyberpeace, and – perhaps most importantly – protect children online.
I am therefore, pleased to support ITU’ s latest initiative on “Child Online Protection” (COP).
I believe that COP initiative should be supported and adopted by every Member State because, it is our responsibility as adults to secure that our children can have both fun and safely enjoy online activities, and interactions,
For this reason, I am pleased to chair this session I am especially pleased to have such a renowned set of world experts that will share with us their views on what can be done and what should be done to protect our most valuable resource – our children?
With the six distinguished speakers here, I feel confident that this will generate a fruitful debate and help identify the key priorities where we need to focus our efforts.
Let me now introduce the speakers for this session:
1. H.E. Ms. Diarra Mariam Flantié Diallo is currently Minister of Communications and New Technologies in Mali, after a long-standing career in the African Development Bank in Tunis.
2. Ms. Deborah Taylor Tate, Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission, United States of America. Often referred to as the “Children’s Commissioner,” she is a leading voice on issues affecting families and children, and has been at the forefront of the movement to ensure that advances in communications technologies benefit all Americans. Deborah Taylor Tate was nominated to the Federal Communications Commission by President George W. Bush on November 9, 2005 and reappointed on June 20, 2007 by President Bush to a full five-year term..
3. Mr. Sherif Hashem, Executive Vice President, Information Technology Industry Development Agency, Arab Republic of Egypt. Dr. Hashem
is author and co-author of more than thirty articles and book chapters in the
areas of information technology, e-commerce, computational intelligence, and
operations research, with applications in engineering, energy, environment, and
computer sciences. He has a remarkable expertise in this area.
4. Dr. Pascal Villeneuve, Associate Director, UNICEF. Dr. Villeneuve oversees UNICEF engagement in global programme partnerships and we are very happy that he has joined us today to deliver a speech on behalf of Dr. Ann Venneman,Executive Director of UNICEF.
5. Dr. Christiane Agboton-Johnson, Deputy Executive Director, UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). For three years, Dr Agboton Johnson has served on the Secretary General Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters and is currently a member of the ECOWAS Advisory board on Small Arms Control.
Following the opening addresses, I will open the floor to Councillors for
questions to the speakers, or for general comments and remarks. I invite H.E.
Ms. Diarra Mariam Flantié Diallo, the Minister of Communications and New
Technologies in Mali to give us her address
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