Phnom Penh:​ The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, in collaboration with the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, is busy conducting a 5-day workshop on online child protection. Ministers are being joined by experts from civil society, educational institutions and media agencies, as they look at ways of protecting children from online abuse.

Cases have sky-rocketed around the world over the past 18 months, with the pandemic leaving children highly-vulnerable to online predators. With schools still closed in Cambodia, children are learning online, but are often spending time on a smartphone or laptop with no adult supervision.

The NGO, Action Pour Les Enfant, says predators are preying on children via apps and social media. They can be lured into innocently producing pornography, or tricked into sharing sensitive information such as credit card numbers and physical addresses.

Parents are being advised to keep an eye on how long their children are spending on the internet, what sites they’re looking at if they’re in their bedrooms for long periods of time, or if they start displaying changes in emotion or behaviour. More guidelines, advice and counter-measures are expected to be announced when the online conference concludes on Friday.