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Bulgaria needs comprehensive approach to protect children online: officials

Xinhua, May 18, 2015 Adjust font size:

Representatives of various Bulgarian institutions here on Monday urged the government to develop and implement a comprehensive approach to protect children on the Internet.

"We want to have a national policy, a structured national approach, in order to be assured that our children will get on the internet a lot of what is useful and will rarely face those things that are harmful and dangerous," Georgi Apostolov, coordinator at the Bulgarian Safer Internet Center, told a roundtable organized by the Ministry of Transport, Information Technologies and Communications.

Children cannot be completely isolated from the dangers online, but should be prepared to face them, Apostolov said.

The fight against child pornography and pedophilia is crucial in introducing a comprehensive and structured approach, he said.

However, counseling is not less important because more than 90 percent of the problems were caused by underage persons to underage persons, such as fake web pages containing degrading information, Apostolov said.

Research of latest trends, along with training of children, parents, teachers, social workers and police officers, and implementation of legislative initiatives were also needed, he added.

Kalin Kamenov, Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports, said according to the EU Digital Inclusion and Skills report, over 80 percent of Bulgarian population had low or no digital skills.

Therefore, he said IT companies should train teachers, IT students could help in schools, and that a national information campaign be launched for parents about the importance of digital skills for their children.

Meanwhile, Orlin Kouzov, ICT expert at the Ministry of Education and Science, said the integrated approach required the active participation of all stakeholders such as teachers, parents, NGOs and government.

Digital campaigns on social media platforms "would reach many more people and be more durable than if taught in a special class on these topics," Kouzov said. Endit