Save the Children - I
Sri Lanka is beset by an alarming crisis that is receiving scant attention from policymakers: online violence against and exploitation of children, including the production and widespread dissemination of child porn, cyber extortion, receiving indecent text messages, cyberbullying, and even online gambling for children among a string of other crimes.
Three out of 10 Sri Lankan children face some type of online violence, a 2021 study by Save the Children organisation has found. The range of offences is wide and varied.
The US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which tabulates country reports, revealed that in 2021 alone, its tip line recorded a staggering 152,811 incidents of online child sexual exploitation and abuse content hosted from Sri Lanka.
Law enforcement agencies in Sri Lanka say the complaints roll in every day and are piling up. Parental supervision is weak given today’s socio-economic conditions where both parents are at work but the biggest hurdle to doing anything about these crimes against children by predators behind a computer is that available domestic legislation is wholly inadequate.
Not even the recent controversial Online Safety Draft Bill took cognisance of the dire situation related to online child sex material. There is no information on investigations to get to the bottom of who generates this content. And at the present level of crime, the caseload is impossible for Sri Lankan courts to tackle.
While Sri Lanka has ratified all the necessary UN conventions and optional protocols, domestic legislation has not been brought in line. One reason could be that implementation is difficult, and will require internet service providers to introduce strict controls that could make their customer base unhappy. But the situation in Sri Lanka with regards to online child sexual exploitation is beyond serious.
The country does not even have laws to remove illegal content quickly or to prevent it from appearing in the first place. There is nothing to prevent children from accessing harmful and age-inappropriate content. The gaps are yawning.
Yet the government’s recent Online Safety Bill addressed none of these issues. This could be because, as a Presidential Committee pointed out, there is “a poor status of knowledge and understanding among political decision-makers and high levels of government about the real threats that children face”. They don’t know what tech-based and innovative measures they can and must take; or there is no effort at international cooperation which is essential to address a problem that has no boundaries.
This epidemic of online crimes against children cannot, and must not, be put off any longer. There are international road maps for legislation and implementation. Any delay in adopting a similar strategy is a dereliction of duty by those in government.