As part of global discussions to ensure safer internet usage for children, Prof  Hauwa Ibrahim, international  human rights lawyer and President of the Peace Institute, has called for urgent measures  by the Federal Government, as well as parents  to ensure that Nigerian children are protected in cyberspace.

Ibrahim made the call when she featured as Keynote Speaker at the 2024 annual summit of Women Community in Africa (WCA) on Thursday in Abuja.

The summit with the theme,” Cyber Safety: Empowering Families in the Digital Age”, seeks a common front for policymakers, parents, caregivers, educators and other stakeholders in ensuring safer internet space for the Nigerian child.

According to Ibrahim, who spoke on the topic “Cyber Safety at Home: Empowering Families with Digital Literacy”, as Nigeria embraces and maximises the possibilities that the cyber space offers  in the digital age,  safety and well-being of  Nigerian  children should also  be given utmost priority by  government, policymakers and parents.

Ibrahim who won the   European Parliament ‘s Sakharov prize in 2005, called on the federal government  for the implementation of  regulations on all social media handles due to a surge in online vices and abuses.

She therefore described the summit as apt and commended the WCA for championing the campaign for a safe cyber space for Nigerian families.

“There are more students in the hall, and that means good impact in terms of the objective of the summit today because  when you have the younger ones participate it means  a bright future for us ,and it is  that future that I’m interested in terms of  the cyberspace.

“I have   a general perspective on cyberspace conversation with them today, but how do we key in parents and families? How do we key in students? And for me, that is very fundamental.

“The government is made by the people for the people and for the benefit of our society, and so the first thing I will suggest is effective regulation by government where there is limited access to children about what they can watch.

“Government must put  regulation in place to be able to control these Internet service providers.Now, I want you to also know that the people who created this technology do not allow their children to use it and  Why should we, picking it from the streets, allow our children to use it?

 “I want to  also encourage parents not to give phones to their children before the age of 15. Also, some of the Internet companies we have in these countries are too big, as they controls so much and I think the idea of breaking them into smaller pieces is very important.

 “We must break them,we must have national interests ahead of any other interests and any company that doesn’t have 51% ownership by Nigeria shouldn’t be in the country.

 “We should also speak   against them using our information against us. these are things that the government must investigate, interrogate to  know what is the content of what they are giving to us,” she said.

The summit had in attendance heads of organisations from both the public and private sectors, Civil Society  Groups, members of the diplomatic community parents and students from different schools in the Federal Capital Territory(FCT), among other stakeholders.