PHNOM PENH: About 400,000 cases of online sexual abuse and exploitation were reported in Cambodia last year, more than double the number reported in 2020.
The Cambodian Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications said the huge number of cases has prompted the government to launch a programme to protect minors from being exploited.
According to a report in the Phnom Penh Post, the ministry – in collaboration with Unicef – had recently launched a campaign called "Promoting the Participation of Technology Companies in Online Child Protection in Cambodia" as one of its initiatives to protect minors.
Neang Mao, director-general of information and communications technology in the ministry, said the project has three main objectives, with the first being issuing guidelines to local technology companies on the matter.
The guidelines are about protecting children from potential harm online in accordance with international standards while at the same time protecting children's rights to freedom on the internet.
The second objective is to train technology companies on child protection and how to report incidents, while the third objective is to prepare for Cambodia to host the Asean Technology Forum on Child Protection online, where regional challenges will be discussed.
Mao said the project was launched in response to the increase in child abuse through online pornography during the Covid-19 pandemic, when most Cambodian children were learning remotely online.
Unicef Cambodia child protection programme director Ben Wildfire said they have conducted a survey on the matter and interviewed many Cambodian children about their experiences.
He said 60 per cent of those surveyed were aware of the risks of sexual exploitation when they used the internet.
They are also aware of seduction or coercion methods used by adults to create and share content related to child sexual abuse.
Wildfire said these risks exacerbated during the Covid-19 pandemic as children spend more time online than ever before.
He said ensuring children can get all the benefits available online without the serious negative drawbacks, was the most important thing that all stakeholders needed to jointly achieve.
"Unicef believes that the Cambodian government has an important role to play in guiding and promoting respect from the business community by making sure that all of their activities adhere to protecting the rights of the child as stated in the UN convention," he said.
Kyu Kyu Thein, TikTok public policy manager for Cambodia and Laos, said the company has a policy to protect children on the TikTok network.
She said children under the age of 13 were not authorised to download or use the TikTok app on their own.
Access to it by four- or five-year-olds can only be done with an adult facilitating that for them, in violation of their terms of service, she said.
Thein said the company also had a policy against any content that negatively affected children on its platform.
"In the last three months alone, we have deleted more than 85 million videos that violated community guidelines, and 45 per cent of the videos removed are those in violation of children's rights," she said.
According to Thein, the company was working with the government and other experts to filter the content to make sure that none of the videos posted are harmful to children.
The Post also reported National Council for Children deputy secretary-general Sambath Sokunthea welcoming the relevant ministries and NGOs actions to help with the prevention of online child abuse.
While expecting increased participation from the private sector now, she said the most effective online child protection system would be through a collaboration between key stakeholders including government ministries and institutions.
Sokunthea said they were the ones who set policies, laws and regulations, while law enforcement authorities, teachers, parents and guardians, NGOs and the private sector will play the supporting role.
Cambodia's Interpol National Central Bureau (NCB) chief Phauk Kolkomar said negligence and a lack of education related to technology caused some children to fall victim to online sexual exploitation.
He said past investigations of online sexual exploitation perpetrators faced challenges such as late responses by the police and limited information on the identities of the victims.
This sometimes made it impossible for the authorities to find out who the victims were.
The Child Rights Coalition Cambodia NGO conducted a study in 2020 and found that 15 per cent of children who attended a consultation session reported that they had been in contact with strangers on social media.
Another two per cent reported that they had been asked to share inappropriate or intimate images on camera by strangers online.