We are looking at banning some sites - Kamikamica

The Government is looking at banning some sites in relation to pornography.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Communication, Manoa Kamikamica confirmed this in Parliament while delivering his ministerial statement.

Kamikamica says we must work together to safeguard our children in both the physical and digital world.

He says it is critical to avoid uploading pictures of our children online when they are not appropriately clothed, because once these videos and images are online they can be exploited by perpetrators in unimaginable and harmful ways.

He says in June they deposited their instrument of ascension to the Budapest Convention which also has a dedicated article for offences related to child pornography and to modernise criminal laws to more effectively address the use of computer systems in the commission of sexual offences against children.

Kamikamica says this is also captured in our Cybercrime Act, and they have also commenced capacity-building sessions for our criminal justice authorities.

In 2023 alone, the CyberTipline of the United States National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children or NCMEC received 3,638 reports on Child Sexual Abuse Material from Fiji.

Kamikamica says one key action item is for our law enforcement to investigate the CyberTip reports.

Kamikamica says they are already in discussions with the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children and the Fiji Police Force on this.

The Deputy Prime Minister says the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children serves as the US national clearing house for leads on child exploitation crimes that electronic service providers are mandated by law to report.

He says these reports are then referred to law enforcement and prosecution.

Kamikamica says 99 percent of the tips are received from electronic service providers such as Meta, Google and TikTok while a small number is received from the public.

Opposition MP Ketan Lal says as a member of the National Task Force on Pornography and as a voice for the many victims who have suffered in silence due to the proliferation of explicit content on social media platforms.

Lal says while he appreciates the Deputy Prime Minister's update on the work undertaken by the task force, he must emphasize that the government's efforts to date have been largely bureaucratic.

He says while the establishment of the task force was a step in the right direction, they must acknowledge the realities that our people, especially our young and women, continue to face every day.

The Opposition MP says this task force has produced more discussions and reviews than actual results, and it is imperative that we do more than just talk.

He says our people are losing trust in processes and commissions that make grand promises but deliver little to no outcomes.