Don’t use internet to acquire wrong knowledge, NHRC charges students

By Albert Akota

The National Human Rights Commission, (NHRC) has charged students to use the internet to improve their knowledge positively rather than having online relationships that will distract you from studying.

The Executive Secretary of the commission, Tony Ojukwu, SAN who disclosed this yesterday in Abuja during celebration of Day of the African Child 2023 with the theme; “the rights of the child in the digital environment” implored them to use internet knowledge rightly not wrongly.

He noted, though internet was not created particularly for children but it has become essential features and must be positioned at the heart of any process involving children as a too for their development because millions of students are increasingly spending time online for learning purposes and to derive personal development or social lives.

Ojukwu added that, the digital environment has a plethora of benefits such as enhancing innovative and inclusive education, free access to information and opportunities for self-expression, wider horizons of awareness and a radically extended scope for social interaction as well as exposing children to risk and challenges including harmful information.

Speaking earlier, chairperson of the African committee of experts on the rights and welfare of child, Hon. Joseph Ndayisenga, said that, in 2022, about 590 million internet users in Africa and the figures include children who represent a third of all internet users in the world and increasingly exposed to virtual environment.

She noted that, the lives of children are impacted by the digital environment which means online need to be considered in the context of rights set forth under the African children’s charter.