The agency is also trying to ensure confidence is preserved in the Internet as a tool for education, knowledge, trade and business that reached an estimated 1.5 billion Internet users worldwide at the beginning of 2009.

Recent surveys have indicated that over 60 percent of youngsters online talk in chat rooms, three quarters were willing to share personal information for commerce, while as many as one in five could be targeted by a “predator”, the ITU said.

About 15-20 percent of children in Europe have been bullied, harassed or stalked online, while a quarter have received unwanted sexual comments, one study indicated.

The first drafts of the guidelines released on Wednesday are aimed at policymakers, industry, and parents as well as children.

One of the experts consulted about the guidance, Dieter Carstensen of the charity Save the Children Fund, said that the best form of defense for children was to make them aware of what can happen online.

Youngsters were advised to be smart by setting limits, meeting online friends offline, being cautious about accepting online invitations, and by telling someone about their concerns.

But they also need to be educated as “digital citizens in an online world that has no borders or frontiers,” the ITU underlined, including by installing firewalls, anti-virus software and spotting unusual communications.

John Carr, secretary of the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety (CHIS), said national governments had an obligation to protect minors in both the real and virtual worlds.

The guidelines advised policy makers to ensure full legal powers and resources were available to tackle child abuse material online or remote enticement of minors.

They also advocated a national sex offenders registry that would limit website access for those registered.

The ITU underlined that protection was also essential to prevent the justification of “entirely unrelated assaults on free speech, free expression or freedom of association” if the hurdles for children were left to fester.

The guidelines, which would not be binding, are meant to be finalized in October after being reviewed at a conference in Tokyo on June 2.

Source: AFP