On Sunday, Facebook asked an unspecified number of users their thoughts on how child abuse images should be handled on the network.

It gave a scenario in which an “adult man” asks a 14-year-old girl for “sexual images”, and then a list of possible answers.

One option read: “This content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it.”

A follow-up question offered options on how policies should be enforced, such as “Facebook decides the rules on its own” or “external experts decide the rules and tell Facebook”.

As noted by the Guardian, none of the options allowed the user to suggest that the proper course of action in this scenario would be to inform child protection agencies or call the police.

“We run surveys to understand how the community thinks about how we set policies,” said Guy Rosen, Facebook’s head of product.

“But this kind of activity is and will always be completely unacceptable on FB. We regularly work with authorities if identified. It shouldn’t have been part of this survey.

“That was a mistake.”

Data set

The company is no longer running the survey.

The BBC understands Facebook’s team was instructed to find out how users felt was best appropriate to deal with illegal content on the network. The site is not, of course, considering changing how it deals with child abuse imagery.

Over the network’s head looms the prospect of more regulation.

By asking users if they feel more comfortable with Facebook determining the rules on how unacceptable content is handled could be an attempt to build data to back up its likely argument that it can regulate itself.

Another option, whereby experts advise the network, is also a possibility. In the past, Facebook has turned to outside experts when developing new technologies, particularly those aimed at younger users.

However, the site as criticised over its choice of experts – many of which it had funded, as reported by Wired magazine.

Facebook has had a tough time dealing with negative publicity recently. At an event for US conservatives last month, in the wake of another school shooting, the company demonstrated a virtual reality shooting game set in a train station.

It later pulled the demonstration, saying it regretted its inclusion on its stand.

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Source: BBC

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Reports revealed that a majority of children aged 10 years or younger are engaged in hazardous and physically demanding work in these fishing communities.

While the boys are forced to work on the Lake Volta even in unfavourable weather conditions, their female counterparts are seen completing most of the tasks onshore, keeping many away from school and denying them normal lives.

The Municipal Social Welfare and Community Development Officer, Mr Lambert Egblewogbe, told Citi News there have increasing cases of child abuse in the area with most of such children becoming school dropouts.

“The whole municipality, we have lakeside communities, the islands and then where we have the satellite markets where most of these children are used in the market and with others being used on the lake. The school enrolment here is not encouraging because if you get to market days you will see almost all the children more than 60% per cent in the market in school uniforms doing all these things” he lamented.

Known as the Child Protection Social Drive Campaign and with support from the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, KOICA, USAID and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the initiative sought to drive and shift the attention of Ghanaians to the best practices for the development of their children.

The team was in Dambai to sensitize parents and opinion leaders on the need to protect the rights of the children and support their growth.

Hundreds of school children, mostly girls who participated in the event where empowered to report such abuses to relevant stakeholders in order to be rescued.

A play was also staged by the Centre for National Culture (CNC) from Ho to depict the menace and acquaint the public with the government’s Child and Family Welfare and Justice for Children policies.

The UNICEF Representative warned the students against mobile phone addictions and advised them to practice healthy relationships with the opposite sex.

She also advised parents to be responsible and not push their children into forced labour.

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By: King Nobert Akpabli/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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According to the MP, the children were picked up in April 2017 this year on suspicions they were being engaged in child labour.

[contextly_sidebar id=”phtoL327K2n5vsm95zhfD9feRGX7hdFT”]She argued that the NGOs approach is suspicious.

Speaking to Citi News, Ms. Mensah said the concerns of her constituents were that “this NGO, International Justice Mission, never consulted with stakeholders, traditional rulers or opinion leaders to really understand the cultural setting of the Afram Plains area.”

“We simply believe that whatever they were doing is our way of life. Children as young as six years are trained on how to use the lake and how to swim and to survive.When any NGO wakes up without really understanding the setup of the constituency and somebody sits in Accra and writes a report on things they really don’t know about, it becomes a problem.”

“As I speak to you know, we don’t know the whereabouts of the children. These communities were raided during the time children were on vacation and right now, schools have reopened. We need the children to go back to school.”

Some of the stakeholders in the constituency have drafted a petition, and Ms. Mensah has tried to get in touch with the Gender Ministry to present the petition “but all attempts have proven futile.”

“Currently, I have filed the report with the secretariat. I have copied the IGP’s office because there were some police involved in the raid. I have also filed a copy of the petition to the right honourable speaker’s office. I am waiting for the Speaker’s approval and then I will take it on,” the MP said.

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By: Farida Shaibu/Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sponsored campaign, seeks to tackle the root  causes of poverty among fishermen and fishmongers, on the premise that poverty is what drives the abuse of children.

CEWEFIA launched the campaign headlined Sustainable Fisheries Management Project on Monday at Elimina, under the auspices of the Elmina Traditional Council, with Nana Kofi Kondua VI, the Omanahene of Elmina in attendance.

The launch was preceded by a float by the all-women members of CEWEFIA, dressed in red, through the streets of Elmina to create awareness about child labour and trafficking children to be used in fishing.

In her speech, the Executive Director of CEWEFIA, Victoria Churchill Koomson, lamented that, “It is very sad to see children of about seven and eight years taken to fishing”.

On unapproved fishing practices, she advised fishmongers to “stop buying fishes caught through light fishing and fishing through the use of dynamite”, noting that it will discourage fishermen who engage in unapproved fishing from continuing the practice.

She further enumerated challenges facing fishing communities such as “illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing in Elmina, low publicity of fishing issues and weak enforcement of fisheries and child protection laws”.

Other teething challenges she mentioned are child protection laws and “high post-harvest losses due to unhygienic and unhealthy fish handling, maternal and child health issues and poverty in fishing communities”.

The campaign is basically to keep children in fishing communities in the classroom and to economically empower women who are in the fishing industry in and around Elmina.

CEWEFIA also operates in Shama and Sekondi in the Western Region, as well as other fishing communities in the Central Region.

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By: Joseph Ackon-Mensah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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