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Speakers at a roundtable meeting in Accra say adequate measures should be put in place to protect children online.

That, they said, was to ensure that children were not lured by predators to be sexually exploited and abused, or other negative practices.

They said child protection online was very important for the safety of children who were vulnerable in the society.

The speakers included the Executive Director of J. Initiative, Mrs Awo Aidam Amenyah; the Child Protection Advocacy Manager of World Vision International, Mr Gregory Dery, and the Chief Executive Officer of the Consumers Protection Agency, Mr Kofi Kapito.
J. Initiative, with support from telecommunications firm, tiGO, organised the meeting to sensitise stakeholders to the importance of child online safety, as well as to strategise on how stakeholders could work collaboratively to ensure a safe and secure online experience for children.

Internet filters
Mrs Amenyah urged parents to get internet filters to protect children from accessing certain sites that were not good for their development.

She said parents must also be curious when their children became withdrawn when it came to the use of the Internet because they could be accessing certain sites that had taken their attention and would not want anybody to see that

Paedophiles, she said, for instance, knew the website of children, and thus parents must monitor what their children did online.

Mr Dery said because of their vulnerability, children could be lured easily.

Social media platforms, he said, were where most children were lured by predators who exposed them to negative activities, including pornography and terrorism.

According to him, it is the right of children to be protected.

Mr Kapito said the telcos should consider what went into certain television programmes that were shown during prime time before sponsoring them.