UNESCO

UNESCO believes that the Internet is an extraordinary learning and communication tool. It also advocates universal and equitable access, understanding that children must have access to the Internet to succeed in the future.

It also recognizes that along with the wonders of the Internet, come risks. UNESCO is committed to help educators, librarians, parents and children understand and manage those risks while helping them get the most out of the Internet. This is truly a worldwide effort to create a truly World Wide Web.

Its Origination

In September, shortly after the announcement of arrest of the largest worldwide child pornography ring, and the collaboration of many international law enforcement agencies, UNESCO's Director General, Federico Mayor announced that UNESCO would hold an experts conference in Paris. The focus of the conference would be child pornography, pedophilia and child sexual abuse on the Internet. Experts from around the world were invited to attend. Leaders in online safety from the United States also attended, including The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, The US Department of Justice, WiredPatrol and SOC-UM. Internet experts, law enforcement, content providers and child advocates joined forces to begin a dialogue that would address these issues online and off-line.

Its Leadership

A leader in international children's advocacy, Homayra Sellier, one of the most dynamic of the speakers at the conference, was selected to preside over the entire program, which was later named "Innocence in Danger." Already, Mrs. Sellier has begun forming national action committees around the world to develop and implement action plans customized for their countries needs. Her enthusiasm is infectious. Her leadership is key to the program's success.

Parry Aftab, Esq., one of the invited experts and speakers at the conference and cyberspace lawyer and executive director of WiredPatrol was asked to serve on the follow-up committee and the UNESCO international action committee. She was later asked by Mrs. Sellier to head up the US initiative, by presiding over and forming the US National Action Committee.

A vocal advocate for the Internet and safe, universal and equitable access, where no child is left behind in this technological revolution, Ms. Aftab was asked by Ms. Sellier to help pull together the experts on children online, to teach children how to get the most out of their surfing experiences, safely. She has planned a program to highlight the great sites, the most innovative educational use of the Internet and how the Internet can help children communicate with other children worldwide. She is also committed to teaching parents how to understand the Internet, and how to supervise their children's online use. The programs will develop and distribute information for parents about safe surfing advice, filtering, ratings and parental control options and closed systems and safe havens designed for children. It will  also create a program to help work with law enforcement and Internet  watchdog groups to eliminate child pornography on the Internet, and to keep children safe from sexual exploitation online.

 The initial action plan adopted by the UNESCO conference attendees focuses on issues essential to countries which are both actively involved in Internet use and those which are not yet online. Many of the worldwide action plan issues relate more to the countries without Internet access, and the sexual exploitation issues which are serious issues in those countries. Its application to those countries already actively involved with the Internet needed adjustment to reflect the extensive Industry expertise and experience already existing in those countries.

Ms. Aftab has taken the action plan adopted by the attendees at the Paris conference, and applied her extensive Internet expertise to it, creating the model for the national action committees for Internet developed nations. Countries which are not yet using the Internet in their daily lives will be able to use the materials generated to help develop a safe and equitable roll out for Internet access and content. The program will be in many languages, as well. The programs developed to combat off-line. child sexual abuse and exploitation and provide assistance to victims of such abuse and exploitation will be available off-line. as well as online to provide the support needed for the countries not yet online. Teenagers and young people will help develop materials and methods of delivering the information and assistance most effectively.

The program will be managed largely online, through the use of interactive sites, extranets and database networks. It is hoped that the US Technology Internet industry will assist in the goal to create one place where experts and advocates for children can find each other, learn from each other and combine forces. Child advocacy groups will be able to sign into a database online to register their expertise and share their work with others. No group will have to reinvent the wheel once this network is created. Instead their work for children will have immediate reach around the world. Small and large groups, well-funded and unfunded alike will find each other and finally be able to work together towards the same goal...keeping children safe and helping them be all that they can be.

It is Ms. Aftab's intention to gather the leading experts in the United States from the computer, technology and Internet industry, schools, libraries and community Internet access groups, parent groups, content providers and the media, child advocacy groups, law enforcement, opinion makers, community groups and government into a giant virtual "think tank." This will be run through wiredkids.org Task forces organized by industry will then implement action plans created by these experts. Certain select industry leaders will be asked to serve on the National Action Committee itself, to provide the representative leadership necessary to make this a truly global program. America Online, Microsoft, The American Library Association, US Attorney Lynne Battaglia (US Federal District of Maryland and home of Innocent Images of the FBI), Larry Magid (child online safety advocate and  creator of safekids.com and safeteens.com) and the National Urban League are just a few of those which have already agreed to join the initiative.

Many of the leaders of their industries have already committed to the UNESCO project. The members of  the US National Action Committee and the advisory committees for each task force was announced at a press conference in late May, 1999, in New York at the United Nations. Press and media interested in advance direct notice of WiredKids' activities should contact . Groups and individuals interested in being a part of their industry's task force should contact Ms. Aftab as well, at the same numbers and e-mail address appearing above.