Replies to the Thematic Questionnaire
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T-ES(2017)ICT-DE LANZAROTE CONVENTION Council of Europe Convention on the protection of children against sexual exploitation and sexual abuse Replies to the thematic questionnaire GERMANY 2nd thematic monitoring round “The protection of children against sexual exploitation and sexual abuse facilitated by information and communication technologies (ICTs)” Replies registered by the Secretariat on 14 November 2017 Prevention Question 1 Awareness-raising or educational activities/tools/materials/measures 1.1. Are there awareness-raising or educational activities/tools/materials/measures addressed to children, about the risks they face when they produce and/or share: a. self-generated sexually explicit images and/or videos? b. self-generated sexual content? Answer: Educational and awareness-raising activities, tools, materials, and measures addressed to children are available particularly at the level of Land institutions. Thus, the Landesmedienzentrum Baden- Württemberg (LMZ, media centre of the Land Baden-Württemberg) looks after media-education projects serving the protection of young persons, on instruction of the State Ministry and Ministry of Culture of Baden-Württemberg, which have the objective of educating people throughout the state of the potential dangers inherent to the use of media, while ensuring that children, adolescents, and adults have the necessary skills in order to deal with media in competent fashion. Each year, the LMZ provides events geared towards adolescents on sexting, cyber-grooming and internet pornography as well as regarding the topic of “media and (sexual) violence.” Moreover, instructional units are available that address overriding topics such as social networks, presenting yourself on the web, data protection, as well as smartphone and apps. The issues of sexualised content and sexual harassment are addressed, as are opportunities for mindfully presenting yourself on the web, questions of developing an identity, and personality rights. Teachers may call upon the qualified speakers of the LMZ to teach the instructional units. The Schüler-Medienmentoren-Programm (SMEP, media mentoring programme for pupils) likewise address the topics referenced above. A twenty-hour training course trains pupils to become media mentors, who will then be able to pass on their knowledge and competencies in projects and/or working groups to their fellow students. Moreover, Baden-Württemberg developed what are called “Starke Kisten” (strong boxes) in 2015 (a “red box” for elementary schools, a “blue box” for secondary schools). These are boxes providing working materials for the prevention of sexual violence. They also include, inter alia, materials on the dangers posed by new media in connection with sexual self-determination. In Bavaria, children and adolescents are educated in targeted projects and measures offered by the children and youth welfare services in a broad range of contexts (projects in the state-funded child and youth work, in youth associations, in the Jugendarbeit an Schulen (JaS, social work with adolescents at schools) programmes, in the aid provided in a child-rearing context, in educational measures regarding the protection of minors etc.) about the risks entailed by “sexting” and by sending sexualised images, while their awareness is raised as concerns the low-risk consumption and use of new media in a manner appropriate to their age. Moreover, JFF – Institut für Medienpädagogik in Forschung und Praxis (Institute for Media Education in Research and Practice) offers peer-to-peer projects that are oriented by real-world conditions and allow for a high degree of participation; they take a critical look at the opportunities provided by the new media, along with the challenges and risks they entail. At this institute, children and adolescents have the opportunity to obtain information about new apps, internet platforms and internet forums, chat rooms and messenger services, while also trying them out in a protected environment. The project “webhelm.de” teaches adolescents more about their rights as well as their obligations on the web (data protection, privacy, copyright etc.). Furthermore, young people learn at webhelm.de how to protect their own boundaries while also respecting the personality rights of others. 2 In similar fashion, children and adolescents have the opportunity to critically reflect on pornographic content and “sexting.” In this context, knowing about the persistence, the visibility, the spread of personal content on the internet and knowing how easy it is to find such content can have a preventive effect on the dissemination of sexual content by creating awareness for the potential consequences. In this context, the webhelm.de-project is based on the insights most recently gained in the study “Mobile Medien in der Familie (Mofam)“ (Mobile Media in the Family) published by the JFF institute, which addresses the usage behaviour of children, adolescents, their parents, and the expert staff in child daycare centres. This study takes a close look at the high-risk consumption and the online use of offerings on the web that are not appropriate for children. It is planned to expand webhelm.de by the topic of “friendship” in the first quarter of 2018. This will specifically target contacts launched on the internet while answering questions on how to deal with networking forums and the corresponding apps. A primary matter of relevance in this context is the presentation of oneself in supposed groups of friends, and the matter of “sexting” will also be addressed. In this framework, the corresponding model projects for children and adolescents are in the process of being conceptualised and implemented, so that it will be possible in future to deal with the risks entailed by the dissemination of sexually explicit content. Furthermore, there are the explanatory video clips published by Handysektor, an online offering provided by the Landesanstalt für Medien Nordrhein-Westfalen – LfM (Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia) and the Medienpädagogischer Forschungsverbund Südwest (research association for matters of media education in the South-West of Germany) in cooperation with klicksafe.de. This is available under the URL https://www.handysektor.de/mediathek/videos/erklaervideo- sexting.html. Moreover, the information portal run by the international EU project headed by ECPAT for the project “make IT safe” provides information on, inter alia, the online risks of sexting; this is available under http://webhosting-einfach.de/make-it-safe.net/index.php/de/. 1.2. Are there awareness-raising or educational activities/tools/materials/measures specifically targeting children as bystanders/observers of other children producing and/or sharing: a. self-generated sexually explicit images and/or videos? b. self-generated sexual content? Answer: Some of the measures cited under Item 1.1 also have been conceived to cover children who are looking on or observing as other children are uploading self-generated sexual images and/or videos, respectively are creating and/or sharing self-generated content. This is reported, for example, by Baden-Württemberg. In the measures taken in that Land, it is pointed out to adolescents, or they are in fact urged, to not stand by when they see this happening and instead to take action. They learn, inter alia, that anyone transmitting pornographic content will be liable to punishment under German law and that adolescents (like adults) are entitled in Germany to enforce their “rights relating to images of themselves” (section 22 of the Art Copyright Act). Moreover, the “make IT safe”-project cited under Item 1.1 takes a peer-to-peer education approach, providing materials allowing adolescents to coach other adolescents; these materials are available under http://www.make-it-safe.net/images/coach_de.pdf 1.3. Are there awareness-raising activities/tools/materials/measures addressed to parents and persons who have regular contact with children (teachers, psychologists, health care professionals, etc.) about the risks children face when they produce and/or share: a. self-generated sexually explicit images and/or videos? b. self-generated sexual content? 3 → Please specify which entities carry out the above-mentioned awareness raising or educational activities (questions 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3) and how they coordinate their action. → Please share links to awareness-raising or educational materials (e.g. booklet, video, smartphone application, manual on non-formal education, tool-kit, internet tools) produced for the above mentioned activities (questions 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3). Answer: In all Ministries of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in Germany, there are departments competent for the ongoing professional training and counselling regarding sexualised violence in schools as well as for its prevention (teacher training institutions, prevention departments, psychological counselling for school matters, etc.). Schools have the opportunity to obtain support regarding all forms of sexualised violence in the form of prevention offerings for pupils, counselling opportunities for parents, and ongoing professional training for specialists working in schools (demand-based); this also applies to self-generated sexually explicit images respectively content (the offerings available will differ, in terms of their nature and scope, from one Land to the next). By participating in ongoing professional training courses, specialists working in schools have the opportunity to obtain information