Online child protection

The growth of digital technology has brought about job opportunities politically, economically, and socially and has improved the quality of life and work and increased good relations and cooperation with countries in the region and around the world. However, along with the development of digital technology, many challenges have emerged, such as crime, kidnapping, illegal trafficking, exploitation, and abuse online, which have emerged and become a new context that can have serious impacts on citizens, especially women and children, both physically and mentally. This problem has been spreading around the world, including Cambodia.

In view of these challenges and impacts in a global context, the Royal Government of Cambodia became a signatory to the WePROTEC Declaration in Abu Dhabi in 2015 on actions to prevent online child sexual exploitation and abuse and participated in the adoption of the Declaration calling on all ASEAN member states to adopt high standards to protect all children in ASEAN from online sexual exploitation and abuse at the ASEAN Summit on 2 November 2019 and joined the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children on 12 September 2019.

Cambodia also has a Disrupting Harm Study, a research project on the exploitation and sexual abuse of children online. The project covers two continents: six countries in Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, and seven countries in East and Southern Africa. The results of the project report provide comprehensive evidence about the risks that children face online. How these risks arise, how these risks interact with other forms of violence, and what can be done to prevent and reduce these risks. These findings have helped Cambodia take further steps to ensure that the Internet is safe for children.

In 2019, the General Secretariat of the CNCC conducted an initial situation analysis on child online sexual exploitation in Cambodia, studying the impact of these technologies on children and finding that children are particularly vulnerable to online sexual exploitation and abuse. Based on the initial situation analysis, the General Secretariat of the CNCC also developed an action plan to prevent and respond to online child sexual exploitation 2021-2025.

Based on this plan to focus on child online protection, the General Secretariat of the CNCC has collaborated with ChildFun Cambodia to prepare documents, lessons, and teaching materials for child online safety training under the Swipe Safe project. The lesson documents and teaching materials for child online safety training are divided into 4 types, focusing on the following target groups: 1)- Books for training of trainers 2)- Books for training social service workers force 3)- Books for training parents, guardians, and caregivers 4)- Books for training adolescents and young people. 

The purpose of child online safety training is to strengthen the knowledge of social service workers, parents, guardians, caregivers, and adolescents to understand how to use the internet safely and responsibly and protect themselves from online abuse. In particular, the training recipients will be able to understand how to seek help and respond when faced with online problems.