Today I continue my previous column ‘For the safety of our children’, a lot of fabric to cut. I start with the invitation I made there: digital literacy for parents and caregivers, active and face-to-face attitude and, of course, parental control tools.
Parental control tools are programs that are installed on devices in order to determine usage rules that include time, content that can be accessed, contact monitoring, and general activity.
It is important to mention that all internet access providers offer this service by default. So if they don’t have it yet, they just need to call them. Before installing these tools, I recommend that you define these rules clearly with the children. A good way to do it is interactively through the platform https://thesmarttalk.org/.
Other resources that I recommend are: Family Link, an application that is installed on both parents’ and children’s mobile phones. Multiple devices can be controlled from the parents. Of course, I also suggest YouTube Kids, a social network for children with various educational content and control tools. In general there are multiple alternatives, just explore the ones that are most suitable for you.
On the other hand, if they are faced with a risk situation that they should report, be it their own or someone else’s, there is the ‘I protect you’ portal (https://teprotejo.org/). This is a public-private alliance, which has existed since 2012, whose objective is to safeguard children and adolescents from different types of dangers.
There you can report confidentially, in addition to cyberbullying and child pornographic material online, situations such as: mistreatment, abuse, child labor, sexual exploitation, school bullying, sale of alcohol and other drugs, and any other situation that violates rights of those under 18 years of age, who constitute almost 35% of the Colombian population. ‘I protect you’ is in charge of channeling the situation before the competent authorities and responding to the complainant in the stipulated times according to each case.
‘I protect you’ is administered by Red PaPaz (network of fathers and mothers) and involves key actors such as the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications (MINTIC), the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF) and the National Police, among others.
From 2012 to October 31, 2020, the platform processed around 88,000 reports, of which 21% correspond only to 2020. Some of the results include the blocking of 6,783 Colombian websites for containing images of child sexual exploitation (26,621 photos ) and whose dismantling was achieved in collaboration with the International Association of Internet Hotlines (INHOPE), an international body that regulates child pornography hotlines.
So to continue this extensive path of education in terms of prevention of digital risks, I invite you to review the compendium of videos of ‘I protect you’ in https://teprotejocolombia.org/prevencion-de-riesgos-digitales/. You will undoubtedly find very valuable resources for accompaniment, as well as material for dissemination.
The family, society and the state, all of us, must ensure the attention, care and protection of our children and adolescents; this includes those recruited by illegal armed groups. Failure to do so is a very bad indicator of abandonment and social breakdown.
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