Protecting girls online_VAW and girls

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Tags:

• ICT
• Keep your chats exactly that
• violence against women
• Women'sNet

About Keep-Your-Chats-Exactly-That!!

Keep-Your-Chats-Exactly-That! is online safety campaign that empowers South African girls and boys with information and tactics to keep themselves safe when using social networking tools with a computer or mobile phone.

In the past few years, there has been a tremendous increase in cell phone ownership by young people. Apart from receiveing and making calls, the cell phone is popular amongst young people because of the covergence of technologies that has made it possible to access the Internet via mobile phones. On the Internet, young people access social networks and mobile instant messaging applications and it is relatively cheap to do this.

However, since the inception of these social networks and mobile instant messaging applications, the has been continuos cases of girls being gone missing or abducted by strangers they met on these networks. Although the girls' irresponsibility is to blame, much of the blame should be given to the dearth in education and awareness on digital dangers. Keep-Your-Chats-Exactly-That! will bridge the knowledge gap for boys and girls; educators and parents and will ensure that cyber safety is regarded as important equally to safety on the streets.

The change we want:

Women'sNet wants girls to actively and safely participate in online and mobile social networks so that they have increased access to information, points of support and are part of the 'information society. We want parents to understand the warning signs of abuse, and act to make their children safer when using online and mobile social networks. We would like school teachers to be aware of the potential dangers of using digital media, and the potential solutions for safe communications