Let's protect our children from dark side of Internet

Children from MM Shah and Mv Shah primary School in Mombasa with Laptops at their School in 2014. [File, Standard]

The importance of the Internet in the education of our children cannot be overemphasised. The web is an unmatched repository of knowledge and with a computer or a smartphone and internet connection, one has the world on their laps literally.

The Internet makes learning easy as students have access to all manner of books and other sources of information at the click of the mouse.

It is for that reason that the government has been putting a lot of emphasis on digital learning through, for instance, the schools laptops programme and the competency-based curriculum.

And although the laptops programme did not progress as envisioned, many children from families that have computers and smartphones have access to the Internet. Some parents and guardians have even bought their children smartphones.

Unfortunately, many of them don't bother much about what their children do with the gadgets going by a National Plan of Action to Tackle Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA) report that says more than 12 million children have accessed pornography online.

That is more than half of Kenya's 21.9 million children. This is sickening and a testament of abdication of duty by parents and guardians and the government. More worrying is that children are being subjected to online abuse and sexual exploitation.

The report by OCSEA must jolt everyone who cares about the welfare of children. While we cannot reverse the match of the Internet, the report should prompt us to take a lot of interest in what our children do online.

If you cannot supervise or keep track of what your child does online, keep them off the Internet. It defeats logic to give your child a gadget that would put them in harm's way.

Besides parents, teachers should educate children on how to evade the dangers that lurk online.  The government too must do more to arrest online predators and limit access to sites that are ruinous to children. Let us join hands to secure our children.