Bhubaneswar: The challenges brought by novel CORONA virus for children are very difficult to cope with. With schools closed and education through online has forced millions of children in to the digital world. The digital safety of the children is no less important than teaching them how to safely cross the road. To create a safe digital environment for children and to protect them from the online predators, to generate awareness & to capacity building of Key stakeholders a district level workshop on children and child protection mechanisms was organized by People’s Cultural Centre (PECUC), a leading voluntary organisation of Odisha in collaboration with Foraldralosa Barn & in cooperation with Dist Police, Khordha & DCPU Khordha at SP Conference Hall, Khordha. Ms. Anuradha Mohanty, Executive Director of PECUC gave the key introduction and shared the purpose of this workshop. She further stated that the children’s safety is of utmost priority and for this initiative should be taken on every level. Dr. Minakshi Panda, Chairperson, PECUC, presided over the workshop. Joining this programme as Chief Guest Mr. Rajkishore Dora, SP, Khordha said threat to children in the cyber world can be prevented by massive awareness and education of the parents, guardians and different stakeholders. Additional SP Mr. Suresh Kumar Dash gave stress on parental guidance to prevent the crime against children. Long time engagement of children in cyber world is threatening their safety issue and also increasing missing children as children are easy prey to online predators. So parent should remain aware about their children’s online activities to prevent the crime were stressed by Ms. Banishree Pattnaik, DCPO, Khordha. Ms. Ruby Rout, Country Director, Adoptions Centrum gave emphasis on monitoring the online activities of children by parents and guardians.
In this workshop Dr. Rabindra Narayan Behera, Sr. Technical Director (Retd), National Informatics Centre discussed in details about online safety, cyber crime with case detection methods. He stressed importance on education and awareness can only keep children safe in online. Mr. L. K. Biswal, Retd. Judge, discussed on laws, investigation methods and case proceedings related to cyber crime. An open house discussion was also held on cybercrime & laws & issues related to child protection. The house recommended training to parents, training to teachers, friendly pictorial & video mentioning at local language, training to key stakeholders including police, PRIs, Aanganwadi workers, focus training on investigation on cyber crime to police officials, massive awareness & campaigns, coordination between different departments of Govt. and strict enforcement of laws etc, can provide safety to children in cyber world. Around 100 nos of participants including police, ASHA, AWW, PRI members, teachers etc participated in this workshop. Vote of thanks was given by Ms Alpana Das of PECUC. The programme was facilitated by Binod Das, Debasish Mahapatra, Upama Mohanty, Priyadarshini Swain & Urmila Parida of PECUC.
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