Rebecca Ratcliffe, 13 September 2018<\/p>\n
Alerts sent to every citizen encourage use of portal where illegal images and videos can be flagged up anonymously<\/em><\/p>\n Text messages urging people to report online child abuse were sent to every Zambian national on Tuesday, as the country launched a crackdown on illegal images.<\/p>\n Zambia is the latest southern African country to set up a portal for reporting abusive images or videos that allows members of the public to report online content anonymously. Disclosures will be analysed by the Internet Watch Foundation<\/a> (IWF), a British charity that works with internet companies, governments and law enforcement to remove illegal images.<\/p>\n The initiative is intended to create stronger safeguards as internet access widens across Zambia<\/a>, where an estimated one in five people are online.<\/p>\n \u201cIncreasingly, children in Zambia have access to mobile phones and mobile internet. Their safety online is paramount,\u201d said Muyeba Chikonde, the high commissioner for Zambia in the UK, who explained that some people were reluctant to come forward. \u201c[People] also get scared to [speak out] \u2013 tomorrow you are a witness, and all these issues.\u201d<\/p>\n It is hoped the portal will make it considerably easier for people to flag abuse confidentially.<\/p>\n Zambia is the seventh country in the Southern African Development Community to establish such a portal, following concern about a lack of reporting mechanisms in developing countries. Malawi, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Mauritius and Namibia have all launched similar projects through the IWF. Burundi and Uganda have also introduced portals.<\/p>\n Funding from the Global Fund to End Violence Against Children<\/a> will support the introduction of similar projects in 30 developing countries.<\/p>\n Last year, the IWF identified and removed more than 80,000 webpages containing child sexual abuse images and videos. The darkweb and the borderless nature of online child abuse \u2013 a child could be abused in Russia, with images hosted in the Netherlands and viewed in Australia \u2013 presents a challenge to child protection experts.<\/p>\n Cambridge-based analysts for the IWF assess images to spot clues that might identify where abuse has taken place. \u201cOften you can tell from an image, there might be a plug socket or some sound on the video which help to identify a child,\u201d said Susie Hargreaves, the IWF\u2019s chief executive. \u201cWe can then escalate it and law enforcement can step in.\u201d<\/p>\n But in the vast majority of cases it is not possible to save a child. One analyst, who could not be named, said she has often seen the same child being abused throughout their childhood and teenage years. \u201cA lot of times we\u2019ll see children grow up online from a very young age right through to teenager. Some of them have got to the point where you can\u2019t do anything about them because they\u2019ve crossed that threshold of age,\u201d she said, adding that they sometimes continue to appear in images as adults.<\/p>\n As access to the internet grows in developing countries, the profile of children who are being abused is also changing. \u201cBecause internet penetration has been predominantly in the western world, we have tended to see, historically, more white caucasian children. But as the internet develops in different countries, we\u2019re starting to see different patterns develop,\u201d said Hargreaves.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, the Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority sent a message to each phone owned by a Zambian national, urging citizens to report abuse through the country\u2019s portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n Chikonde said government ministries are now focused on raising awareness among members of the public. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s fear of the unknown [that prevent a person reporting abuse]. The beauty of the portal is that you can report it anonymously. I don\u2019t see why you should keep quiet if you see something.\u201d<\/p>\n