Filters to stop obscenity on Internet urged
KARACHI- The Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are not providing the facility of filters for obscenity, which is creating social and moral problems to the web users in our country.
This was stated by Muhammad Ali of InterLan Consulting while addressing a seminar on ‘Child Stalking and Paedophiles on the Net’ held at the Defence Central Library.
He said that the ISPs are legally bound to place filters to stop obscenity from reaching the users in countries like Singapore, China, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
However, in Pakistan the ISPs have turned down the request for placing filters on the service, maintaining that it is the users headache to install software to filter obscenity, he lamented.
He urged the authorities that to legally restrain the Internet cafes to install locks on their browsers for blocking obscene sites.
At least the cyber cafes should show some social responsibility and make different arrangements for adults and children, Ali stated.
He stressed that the police must be given a freehand to implement the laws against obscenity present in the Pakistan Penal Code as far as net cafes are concerned.
“Due to absence of any check on obscenity, the children under the age of nine are being exposed to sites which seriously damage their psychological and social behaviour”, Ali said.
“We are not talking about children under the age of nine seeing some nude pictures, they are being exposed to hardcore sex, which seriously damages the mental frame of even adult viewers over a period of time,” he added.
The most alarming is the fact that the criminal-minded people allure children and girls through exposure of pornography bombarded through e-mail, he said.
Although child stalking is a crime and punishable under the Pakistani law, which puts it in the ambit of laws relating to sexual abuse, it is hardly reported.
Ali recalled there was only one case which was reported to the police and the culprit was arrested with the help of IT experts made available by the Citizen Police Liaison Committee (CPLC).
That single case involved a French family, whereas Pakistani people hush up these sorts of things, he said, expressing dismay over the absence of communication between children and parents.
He also said that before putting the child on the net, the parents must make sure that the computer has filters, fix the time when it is to be used and place the computer at an open place instead of the privacy of bedrooms.
The chief gust on the occasion, Fatima Surayya Bajiya, lamented that excess exposure to obscene sites is damaging social fabric of our society.
The nucleus of the family, the nexus of peace and security, has become endangered, she warned.
She stressed that the parents must develop strong relationships with children. Instead of dumping children in front of TV, video and computer and forgetting them, the parents must give ample time to their offspring even at the cost of parties and dinners, she said.
Bajiya pointed the pathetic picture of a child of two-and-a-half years who has just started to understand the love of parents and suddenly is pushed away to a Montessori.
For three months children cry, shiver, defecate, throw up choking after crying too long and then realise the people at home really don’t care about me, and actually it is the teachers and the attendant ladies of the school who actually love me. This child becomes dejected from the family, and the weakening social fabric further weakens, she lamented.
The net should be limited to the utility of its purpose for strongly vouching for legal and technical checks on obscene sites opening up in ace of user without any invitation, Bajiya asserted.
She also put great emphasis on physical activities and sports that are fading out as most of the time children are sitting in from of screens. Director Education of DHA Brigadier Fayuz-ur-Rahman (Retd) asserted that the parents must show more responsibility towards their children.
Preventing children from exposure to pornography long before they have attained adulthood is a serious lapse on part of parents, he said.
He quoted a number of verses from the Quran and Hadith, encouraging Muslims to attain knowledge, but only that, which is beneficial.
He also expressed the fear that exposure to pornography would damage the psychological behaviour and make children socially deviant.
Source: Business Recorder
Date:5/27/2002
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