A bid for keeping children safe online

For more information, visit VGT's website, www.virtualglobaltaskforce.com.It's the scenario every parent dreads. Up in her bedroom, a teenage girl is chatting away to a new friend on the laptop her parents gave her for her birthday. They assume that she is just talking to school friends, but the boy she is messaging - who has told her he is 16 - is, unbeknown to her, a paedophile in his 30s. After weeks of building her trust, he eventually lures her to a hotel room, where he rapes her.We might like to hope that this story - the plot of the movie Trust, currently showing in UAE cinemas - is just a far-fetched, Hollywood tale, but the dangers posed to children in the online world are being taken seriously in the Emirates.The UAE is the first Middle Eastern country to have joined the Virtual Global Taskforce: an international partnership of law enforcement agencies, non-government organisations and industry that aims to help protect children from online child abuse. Represented in the UAE by General Nasser, a Major General in the Ministry of Interior, the VGT is launching a campaign today leading up to the biennial VGT Conference 2012, which is to be hosted in Abu Dhabi in December."The VGT is about making the internet a safer place for children," explains Lt Col Faisal Al Shamari, Liaison Officer and Media Co-ordinator with the VGT.According to Al Shamari, the problem should not be treated lightly."The traditional means of thinking that children within the boundaries of their home are safe from any risk is a fake perception. Parents need to know that with internet access their children can be accessed by offenders and criminals. Some might be honest, nice, decent people but you never know who's on the other line of the internet; it could be an offender; it could be a convicted criminal; it could be a psychopath; it could be a decent man or woman or another child. You cannot be sure of the identity of the other people you are communicating with."The statistics give little comfort. "Some international statistics show that one out of five children are being attempted to be groomed online for sexual exploitation purposes," says Al Shamari. "This indicates that there is a high risk; it is evolving to become a challenge."Research carried out closer to home bears this out. The Dubai British School this year carried out a survey of the student body to find out pupils' internet habits and experiences. According to Mark Wood, the school's ICT co-ordinator, the results were startling."The results showed a surprising number of year-seven students with Facebook accounts, although Facebook's official policy states that you should not have a Facebook account unless you are 13 years old."More worryingly, according to Wood, "17 per cent of our secondary students claimed to have met up with someone they had met online. Feedback from teachers suggested that in nearly all cases there was no serious threat mentioned, however, some students shared stories of 'friends of friends' who had experienced difficulties."It wasn't just stranger danger that was a problem, either, says Wood."A high proportion of students admitted to either being bullied online or having bullied someone else online."The school is determined to educate the children about online risks, with a cyberbullying unit in each year group and a course on e-safety for older students. Crucially, the school insists that educating the children is not enough and holds presentations for parents. According to Wood, parents are often ignorant of the potential problems."Our students use Moshi Monsters, Club Penguin, Facebook, etc. The ISPs apply certain filters over here but they only really block out pornographic content. I believe that most parents over here in the UAE think that these filters are sufficient to keep their child safe, when in fact they couldn't be further from the truth."