Author: Sean Howard
The Internet is a wonderful and increasingly important resource for information sharing and communication. Tragically, the Internet is also used by predators every day to sexually exploit children and youth. By working together, we can prevent further victimization and work towards our ultimate goal to eliminate the online sexual exploitation of children and youth.
KINSA, incorporated as the Kids’ Internet Safety Association in 2005
was established as an aggressive and proactive response to the negative aspects
of the Internet that harm young people. The Kids Internet Safety Alliance is
lucky to have recognized leaders such as Paul Gillespie working with us. Paul
created the child exploitation unit of the Toronto police and pioneered many of
the tools and techniques used around the world by police forces to track
cybercriminals who use the internet to exploit children. Paul has been directly
or indirectly involved with saving dozens of children from abusive situations.
His efforts have been featured in media around the world. He is now retired
from the Toronto police to focus his efforts full-time on KINSA and on other
projects helping law enforcement around the world deal with this horrible
issue. (He was the police officer who never gave up on Disney Girl and saved
her in the end.)
Despite all this progress, you may be surprised or even shocked to learn that a
good portion of offenders are never prosecuted because legislation in this area
is inadequate and certainly the resources dedicated to fighting this crime are
not enough. We've managed to make good progress in advocating for a raise in
the Age of Consent from 14 to 16 – legislation for this is pending this Fall –
and for prohibiting conditional sentencing (house arrest) for child pornography
convictions. But much more needs to be done.
Canadians- We need your help.
Please take a moment to sign this on-line petition which calls for the
declaration of February 7th as “Safer Internet Day”. We hope the Canadian
Parliament will make this declaration and dedicate that day’s government
business to finding ways to make the internet safer for kids.
So far, 37 countries and over 100 not-for-profit organizations and corporations
endorse "Safer Internet Day" where the issues of Internet safety are discussed
in Parliaments, in the media, and among concerned citizens. Canada and the US
are surprisingly absent from this list.
To sign the petition, please click on the following link:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/saferinternet/index.html
To find our more about KINSA (or to help our cause with a donation), please
click on the following link:
www.kinsa.net
