Express & Star Monday, February 20, 2017
8
COMMENT Moral duty to support youngsters Established 1874
Analysis
Jessica Labhart
[email protected] @JLabhart_star
Some 43 per cent of homes don’t have parental controls on devices
I MENTIONED the spat between militant gender-neutral activists and a toy store which portrayed boys as super-heroes and girls as princesses. This non-gender nonsense is not a new thing. I knew a trainee reporter back in the 1980s who was stridently informed by the feminist tendency in his newsroom that both syllables of his name were a patriarchal, gender-based affront to women. His name was Chapman but to this day he is known as Person-Person.
T
he Government’s decision to end a scheme admitting lone child refugees to Britain marks a major shift in policy.
Campaigners had hoped that at least 3,000 children would be helped by the Dubs scheme, but instead it has been shut down after only 350 beneficiaries.
According to Home Secretary Amber Rudd, it had become a magnet for people traffickers. She warned that the Government must do all it can to avoid incentivising migration. It should be remembered that the scheme was introduced last year by Lord Dubs as an amendment to a bill aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration. But since then Theresa May has repeatedly stressed that Europe should be mindful of ‘pull factors’ encouraging people to make the perilous journey to Europe. Her strict stance on border controls is consistent with the one she held as Home Secretary. There is some credence in the Government’s view that there are other avenues for asylum available. But ministers would be wise to listen to a wide range of views when making decisions that can potentially have a disastrous impact on the lives of children. The UK’s four children’s commissioners have warned that scrapping the scheme will leave children open to the risk of exploitation and trafficking. Their view has been backed by Wolverhampton North East MP Emma Reynolds, who says she fears for the future of youngsters who are turned away from Britain. On one hand the Government is putting up a lot of money to support refugees who have been displaced from war-torn Syria. There are those who understandably believe the cash would best be spent helping people closer to home. And it is true that there are parts of this country that simply do not have the space or resources to cater for more immigrants, no matter how vulnerable they may be. However, Ms Reynolds makes a powerful case for Britain having a moral duty to support these children. It is important that the UK has robust policies in place when it comes to immigration. Millions of people voted to leave the EU precisely because they felt our borders were not secure. But the current humanitarian crisis means that exceptional circumstances are at play. While Mrs May had her reasons for ditching the Dubs scheme, she should make sure that Britain is not open to accusations of letting down these children in peril.
Hold your heads up with pride
D
ejection was etched upon the faces of the Wolves players as they left the pitch at Molineux after giving their all against Premier League title-chasers Chelsea.
But while their disappointment is understandable, this team should be walking tall as they can surely hold their heads up high. It was a huge challenge for underdogs Wolves at the weekend but from the off they took the game to Chelsea, more than held their own and for much of the match many fans were hopeful their team could claim yet another Premier league scalp. Unfortunately it was not to be this time, but having beaten Stoke and Liverpool before giving Chelsea a run for their money, Wolves have shown they are a force to be reckoned with. The home crowd left the ground filled with pride at their team’s performance and happy to boast of being Wolves fans. While the players may be disappointed that the cup run has ended, they must take pride and satisfaction in their achievements in getting this far. They should be proud of themselves –because the fans are certainly proud of them.
A READER says the preacher who suggested the anti-Brexit MP Anna Soubry should burn in hell ‘is just trying to do his job saving lost souls’. Well, that’s one theory. In my experience, if you mention souls and salvation to most vicars they shuffle their feet and look embarrassed.
How safe is your child in cyberspace? With children going online at an ever younger age, the dangers they face within the virtual world can become a reality all too soon
T
hey are the most digitalised generation we have ever known.
They have Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter, all accessible on their phones, tablets, laptops, PCs.
They might be super tech-savvy and able to teach us a thing or two but, how safe really are our children? This is a question that parents and schools across the country, including the West Midlands, are having to address, as more young people than ever before are getting online. A recent study found that 43 per cent of parents in the Midlands with a child aged eight to 18 years old don’t use parental controls on devices that their child uses. That means that there is no failsafe, no barrier between the child and the potential dangers that are lurking online. The latest figures have been commissioned by the consumer credit information expert, to mark Safer Internet Day, which took place on February 7. It also reveals that more than a third of eight to 11 year olds, about 34 per cent in the Midlands, admitted to having a Facebook account, even though it has a minimum age requirement of 13. A further 22 per cent said they have a Snapchat account, followed by 21 per cent who are on Instagram, and seven per cent on Twitter. The study comes after the mother of an 11-year-old girl recently revealed how her daughter was groomed in an online chatroom. The youngster thought she was talking to a boy of a similar age and who lived locally. In fact, she was being groomed by a man in America, who threatened to kill her family if she didn’t send him pornographic photos and engage in explicit online conversations. So how can parents protect their children, particularly when they can access the internet, it seems, almost at any time, through any device, during the day and night. “It’s absolutely vital that schools engage in these issues” said Nick Walton, ICT manager at
Kings C of E School, in Regis Road, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton. We have to train the teachers in identifying the dangers before we can teach the young people. It’s about showing them that what they may think is harmless can actually become something much bigger, can be screengrabbed and shared beyond those for whom it was originally intended.” The school has become the first in Wolverhampton to achieve E-pict accreditation for E-Safety. That means that the school is accredited to provide children with the tools to prevent grooming, radicalisation as well as sexting and online gaming. Mr Walton continued: “As part of the training, we get them to imagine what the virtual world would be like if it happened in the real world. For example, if you had a stranger come up to you in the street and ask to be your friend or if they could follow you – of course you would say no. Because the danger would be obvious. Online, we are more likely to say yes to friend requests or follow requests, but that doesn’t mean that the danger isn’t still there, and still very real.” The school worked with company Concero, based in the Newbridge area of the city, to train its staff in online dangers so as to help youngsters learn about them too. Alan Foster, curriculum development manager for Concero said: “Online dangers are definitely getting worse. When we conduct visits, not just to high schools but to primary schools too, we see that a lot of primary school age children are on social media – particularly Snapchat and Instagram. “I think it’s become such a way of life now that it means that companies such as ours have to be there to train school staff to help protect children. Not only that, but staff themselves also need to protect themselves as there have been cases of cyber bullying against staff too.” Emma Faulkner, 27, of Newbridge, has a 17-year-old sister and a two-year-old son. She said: “It is a worry what they can get up to online because I don’t think there’s any real way
‘Online we are more likely to say yes to a friend request but that doesn’t mean the danger isn’t there’
of monitoring what they can do. We just had to teach our children ourselves what is acceptable to put online and hope that this gets reinforced in schools. I hope that by the time my little one goes to school, he’ll be able to recognise the dangers” Earlier this month, the Government announced plans to educate teenagers in cyber security to boost Britain’s defences against online attacks. The scheme forms part of the Government’s efforts to guard against a future skills shortage amid mounting concern over the damage hackers or terrorists could inflict on the country’s economy and infrastructure. The move has been welcomed by children’s charities, but say it needs to be done alongside lessons on general safety. Claire Lilley, head of online safety at the NSPCC, said: ““Education is the key to teaching children how to use the internet safely and it’s crucial we include this in the curriculum as soon as possible.”
Third of eight to 11-yearolds are on Facebook
LUCY Brown, a London-based clothes designer, had an uninspiring date through an online dating agency. She decided to let the man down gently with a text explaining she was not interested in a second meeting. She was astonished when the ‘normal and sweet’ man replied saying he was devastated and asking for ‘a contribution for the drinks I spent on you’. She sent him £42.50 and made an equal donation to a donkey sanctuary. And they say romance is dead. IN a column for the Daily Telegraph, Philip Johnson despairs of a BBC producer who tries to draw some What if? comparisons between post-Brexit UK and Britain in 1940 if a German invasion had succeeded, as portrayed in the new drama series SS-GB. “People who they thought they could trust have affiliations elsewhere,” says the Beeb spokesman, as though being denounced by your neighbour and executed by a firing squad is a bit like discovering your uncle voted to leave the EU. I recall meeting a lecturer who toured secondary schools to teach children about the Holocaust. He was profoundly shocked to find teenagers who simply could not comprehend the industrialised slaughter of European Jews. One pupil asked who looked after the family pets when the Jews were deported. Another, in all seriousness, asked whether the Jews were offered counselling. When people chuck around insults such as ‘fascist’ or ‘Nazi’ in today’s politics, they diminish the unique evil that stalked our world from 1933-45. They spit on the memory of those who died, and engage in a form of Holocaust denial. Freedom of speech is fine but it is always improved by a sense of proportion. TOLD you so. Last week I reported a suspiciously generous offer for my aged diesel car from one of the buy-your-car websites. This week there’s talk in Whitehall of a scrappage scheme to get diesels off the road that will pay up to £3,500 for our old bangers. Kerching! A WOMAN in China known as the Pangolin Princess has been arrested for eating several protected species of mammals and reptiles, and posting images of her meals online. I am reminded of the court case involving a man accused of killing and eating a golden eagle. He got off after persuading the magistrate he had accidentally killed the eagle in a shooting mishap, and ate it rather than waste it. As he left the court the JP asked him: “As a matter of interest, what does golden eagle taste like?” “Actually,” said the accused, “it’s a bit like swan.”
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