SMW re-enacts need for implementation of cybercrime act

Parents Cautioned On Over-Exposure Of Children To Internet

Experts have stressed the need for the implementation of the Cybercrime Act in the country. The Act became a law in Nigeria in 2015.Panelists, who were gathered on the 4th day of the Social Media Week (SMW) in Lagos, yesterday urged faster implementation, stressing the need for its update to fully assist in the prosecution of violence against women and girls in Nigeria. 
   
Speaking on the topic: “Using Technology and Social Media to Counter Violence Against Women and Girls,” Coordinator, Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team (DSVRT), Mrs. Titilola Vivour-Adeniyi, said the issue of pornography should be addressed in the Act and called for legislation that would be consistent with the times. 
 
Mrs. Vivour-Adeniyi said violence against women and girls happen in different ways, hence the need to update the law to curb the occurrence. The Executive Director of Stand To End Rape (STER) initiative, Ms. Oluwaseun Osowobi, said social media contribute to rape and violence against women and girls, which she said had no restrictions, as it could happen to any person of any class and anywhere. 

The Founder of LagosMums, Mrs. Yetty Williams, said today’s children were born in the computer age; hence positioned to using technology. Human Resource Consultant, Prof Yomi Fawehinmi, said parents should be aware of technologies and allow the children to use them, but should be observant to know when technology begins to distract the children. 
 
“There are the good and bad sides of the Internet. We should not fight our children for using technology, because we will lose the battle. 
“I am not afraid of technology; I am only afraid of those that do not use it,” he said. 
 
According to him, children should be timed on when to go to the social media and maintain a sense of balance between the children and parents. 
He said apart from 13 years being the minimum age for a child to be on social media, parents should also set their own age limit.  
 

Williams noted that in parenting a child, there was always an answer to every question and answers to children’s questions are not far away because of the use of Google, adding: ‘’However, we have to let them know that not everything onGoogle is right or correct.” 

From her perspective, an educational technologist, Dr. Oluwakemi Olurinola, said parents should help introduce the children to sites on the web that would assist them to develop. 
 
Olurinola said children should learn, while having fun on the Internet, with parents monitoring them. “Instill value in them. They need to be monitored, but they should know that monitoring is for love and care. 
 
“We also need to know when to bridge the monitoring and there should be different strategies for different children,” she said.To a counselor at Mirabel Centre, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Mrs. Joy Onoriose, 70 per cent of perpetrators of violence were familiar to the victims. 
 
Onoriose said many of the cases of violence happened to young girls who do not know that they had been violated.  She noted that most victims found it difficult or uncomfortable to voice out or come up for counseling, because of stigmatisation. 
   
Onoriose stressed the need for mothers to educate their children on what rape is and build their confidence to report any such cases, saying: “Parents should be sensitive enough to know if their children are being violated and ask the right questions to get the truth from them.”