The release of the Digital Manifesto from the Children's Charities Coalition was somewhat overshadowed by the government’s statement on Digital Britain, but the Manifesto makes powerful points and is certainly worth noting.

The Manifesto calls on the government to block access to all known child abuse websites and newsgroups and to ensure that the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre’s (CEOP) core funding is sufficient for their needs.

The Manifesto, published by a leading group of charities including the NSPCC, the Children's Society and the National Children's Bureau also call on mobile phone manufacturers and network providers to develop devices for children that have a much-reduced feature set to avoid some of the risks that seem to be associated with the more sophisticated models. They also want progress towards ensuring that mobile phones are marketed responsibly and adequate security safeguards are provided to protect children and young people.

There is a call for training programmes for teachers and others who work with children to include ways of dealing appropriately with online offending or other related problematic behaviours and to allow them to become more closely engaged in the analysis of risks to children and young people on the internet so that they are familiar with both the manifestations of online abuse in victims, and of the kinds of abuse engaged in by perpetrators.

Finally there is a call for social networking and other interactive services, giving urgent attention to their procedures for reporting abuse and for ensuring that all content reported to them is dealt with, within a clearly specified time period.

You can download a copy of the manifest here (4MB Adobe PDF File).



Published: 29/06/2009 10:16:36