Girls in Cambodia use a flash mob event to raise awareness of online safety
Young people help design awareness-raising initiatives to promote online safety, a new documentary investigates a cyber-fraud compound in Myanmar, and an Uzbek human rights group flags up the risk of forced labour in the cotton industry.
A flash mob performance organized with the support of Terre des Hommes Netherlands (TdH NL) took place in Cambodia last week to raise awareness of a child safety campaign. The Safe Online World for Girls (SOWG) initiative, a partnership with AusCam Freedom Project, focuses on spreading awareness and nurturing dialogue among girls, parents, and community members, while also encouraging them to report abuse.
SOWG is part of TdH NL’s Safety for Children and their Rights OnLine project (SCROL), which works to ensure that all children are protected from online child sexual exploitation (OCSE) in a safe family and community environment. Launched a year ago, the project leverages the proactive and collaborative engagement of policymakers, child protection systems, the judiciary, law enforcement agencies and the private sector to bring about systemic change for better online safety, and empowers children to be advocates for their own safety in the fight against OCSE. The project, which is supported by the Dutch Postcode Loterij (NPL), is implemented in Cambodia, Kenya, Nepal and the Philippines, and reached more than 4,000 children last year.
The objectives of the flash mob were to emphasize the importance of knowing how to identify online abuse; share examples of key safe online behavior practices; encourage girls to report and speak up about online abuse and exploitation; and encourage parents to be more involved in the fight against OCSE. Calls to action included sharing the campaign on social media, following the My Safety Online Facebook page to learn more about online safety for girls, and scanning a QR code to play a Chatbot-based awareness-raising game.
Campaigns similar to SOWG have been created in the three other implementing countries, in collaboration with children, implementing partners, and other representatives from the target audience. The Online Safety by “Friendversity” (the University of Friends) campaign in Nepal raised awareness of safe online practices and created a peer support learning network through a Friendversity Facebook page; it reached more than 150,000 young people (online and in schools), with around 2,000 joining the online peer support network. In Kenya, the six-month Online Safety Champions campaign, which runs on all TdH NL social media platforms in East Africa, uses a mix of sensitization messages for government officials, tips for children and parents, and information on how to report cases, to promote an online safety message. And, in the Philippines, a Facebook campaign using memes and videos is being co-developed with members of a SCROL peer support group to increase children’s awareness of the dangers of OCSE while also encouraging them to report cases through existing reporting and referral pathways.
Last year, SCROL also worked to improve advocacy efforts by strengthening existing partnerships with ministries and councils in charge of child welfare at the national and subnational levels, and by building new relationships with the institutions in charge of regulating telecommunications. And the project completed country baseline studies which make a significant contribution to the building of collective evidence on OCSE. For example, it found that, despite some knowledge about online risks, only a small minority of children and parents implement basic safety measures such as managing privacy settings, while discussions within the family about online activities remain almost non-existent.
During the second year of the project, TdH NL will continue building upon its efforts to sustain and create strategic partnerships, improve accountability of governments and the private sector, and ensure children at risk of OCSE and child victims have a voice and can access better educational, legal, health, and social services. In line with the rollout of its new strategy, the mainstreaming of intersectional and trauma-informed care approaches will be central to its efforts.
Here’s a round-up of other noteworthy news and initiatives:
The 2024 UNDP Trends report outlines global themes, emerging issues, and signals of change across the development landscape. It highlights key statistics, such as the increase in global migration to 281 million by 2021, forced displacement reaching 110 million in 2023, climate change vulnerability affecting 3.3 to 3.6 billion people, and projected labour imbalances, including Africa’s rising share of the global working-age population to 16 per cent by 2030.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. has introduced the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act, a federal bill aimed at helping survivors expunge criminal records that resulted from their trafficking situation. The legislation would address the lack of a federal-level statute and establish a process for survivors to defend against any prosecution for coerced criminal activities, offering relief for those convicted. It would also require attorneys to submit a report detailing the number of vacatur or expungement petitions filed within one year of the legislation being enacted.
A newly published article, Consent to Labour Exploitation, explores the theoretical and legal implications of concepts such as exploitation, coercion, and agency in the context of trafficking and slavery, emphasizing that consent alone is insufficient for labour relations’ legitimacy, and that factors such as fairness and protection of workers’ dignity must also be considered. It contends that analyzing consent in the context of labour exploitation requires a nuanced approach, considering factors such as individual coercion, structural coercion, and specific examples such as sex work, migrant labour, and drug cultivation.
The Uzbek Forum for Human Rights’ report on the 2023 cotton harvest in Uzbekistan reveals that, while there was no widespread government-imposed forced labour, an acute shortage of pickers in certain districts resulted in coercion by officials to meet production targets, driven by low pay rates, better job opportunities elsewhere, and the return of migrant workers, highlighting the ongoing risk of forced labour without civil and political reforms supporting freedom of association and independent monitoring.
This new Human Rights Watch report alleges that global carmakers, including General Motors, Tesla, BYD, Toyota, and Volkswagen, are failing to adequately address the risk of Uyghur forced labour in their aluminum supply chains in China, citing Chinese government pressure that has led to weaker human rights and responsible sourcing standards, insufficient mapping of aluminum supply chains, and the challenge of identifying links to forced labour in Xinjiang; it emphasizes the need for increased scrutiny and human rights considerations in global supply chains involving China.
According to the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), most regions globally are either stagnant or experiencing declines in their anti-corruption efforts, with Western Europe and the European Union, while still top-scoring, witnessing a drop in average scores. Sub-Saharan Africa maintains the lowest average and, overall, the rest of the world struggles with averages under 50, facing issues such as dysfunctional rule of law, rising authoritarianism, systemic corruption, political conflict, and lack of judicial independence.
This new DW documentary highlights the way in which victims trafficked into Myanmar’s war-torn east are forced into scam schemes, revealing connections to a Chinese Triad boss and explaining the dangers faced at notorious sites such as KK Park.
The UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery has issued a call for input, seeking insights by 31 March on the role of workers’ organizations in preventing and addressing contemporary forms of slavery, including trade union rights, impact assessment, challenges faced, and practical recommendations for concerned stakeholders.
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