Launch of TV spot on Internet dangers for children

The French government has given the go-ahead for a television campaign aimed at highlighting the potential dangers children may face from the Internet.

Starting this week, and in the run-up to Christmas, TV channels will carry free of charge, a commercial encouraging parents to be more aware of the potential risks their children are running from indiscriminate use of the Net.

And it will be backed up by an information campaign offering advice on what options are also available for computers within the home at least, for filtering access to certain sites.

TV spot

The move follows the highly publicised case last week in France in which a 14-year old girl went missing for five days.

It transpired that she had been in contact over the previous three weeks with a man through an Internet chat room and had travelled half way across the country to meet him.

He was a 44-year-old convicted paedophile, who had been released from prison in August, and when the girl was eventually traced, the initial media reports suggested that he had held her captive.

As it turned out when the girl was questioned by police, she said had not been held she against her will, and had consented to sex with the man.

He has since been charged with unlawful sex with a minor, and could face a 10-year prison sentence, as he is a repeat offender.

With that case the focus of media attention the press conference to launch the campaign to raise public awareness of the potential risks of the Net, couldn't have been better timed and the junior minister for family, Nadine Morano; said the campaign provided the best means of preventing such cases occurring.

"While adolescent boys prefer to play video games (on the computer) girls are more involved in chatrooms," she insisted.

"There's not one week goes by when a young girl in France doesn't find herself faced with a problem whose roots can be traced back to the Net," she added.

"Statistics show that around 62 per cent of parents aren't even aware that their children have a blog."

Both the government's campaign and similar ones from organisations such as Association e-enfance, which provides guidelines for parents and children alike on "safe Internet use", recognise that there is a balance to be struck between "protecting" a child - and in particular adolescent girls - without encroaching on their "secret garden" or right to privacy.

But access to the Net via a home computer is only part of the problem, according to Christine du Fretay, the president of Association e-enfance.

"Often young girls access the Net through their mobile 'phones and give out all manner of intimate information," she warns.

"They don't realise and don't have the capacity to measure the impact of what they're doing, especially as it's something that they probably wouldn't do face-to-face".

While admitting that the problem is far more wide reaching than a simple issue of Internet use within the home; Morano hopes that the latest campaign will open up a broader discussion of the issue, and that parents will take the initiative.

"We will launch a working group to educate young people not just about the Internet, but also about the media in general," she said.

"Parents must talk about the Net with their children who are alone in front of the screen."

The television spot (see accompanying video) which starts airing in France this week, is a German production that has been translated into several languages and has already been broadcast in a number of European countries.