Online child harassment on the rise

Prague, Feb 6 (CTK) - The number of children calling the Czech Safety Line over cyberbullying or other improper behaviour in the virtual world rose nine times in the past five years, representatives of the organisation have told CTK ahead of Safer Internet Day marked on February 7.

Representatives of the Child Crisis Centre said they have been receiving more children lured by someone somewhere via the Internet and then abused.

"The parents often mistakenly believe that their child is safe if sitting in the adjacent room. However, children have got ahead of a part of parents in Internet use. They manage it much better than their parents. Parents have somehow lost the opportunity to guess risks, anticipate them and control what the child is doing," Zora Duskova, Child Crisis Centre director, told CTK.

She said the Internet is the second place after the family environment where the biggest number of cases of sexual abuse of children takes place.

Social networks, web cameras, the publication of photographs and an easy access to porn pages are dangerous, Duskova said.

She said parents are also careless when they place photographs of their naked children from holidays on the Internet.

Duskova said children's psyche can also be damaged by porn web pages. She said more children who experiment sexually come to the crisis centre.

The children have to somehow try what they saw, often on their peers or younger children, Duskova said.

The Safety Line dealt with the first Internet-related cases in 2007 when 25 people sought aid from it. The figure rose to 231 last year.

"Children and adolescents mainly turn to us over being harassed by strange people or lured to a meeting, or over cyberbullying," line head Petr Porubsky said.

Safer Internet Day is annually declared by the European Insafe network that associates organisations promoting the safe use of the net and mobile phones.

The Czech Republic is represented by the Safer Internet National Centre.