By Kuda Pembere
African governments have been urged to come up with laws and regulations that guarantee the security of youth while using the internet and social media platforms.
Speaking at the ICASA Conference, Mr Alan Maleche from the Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV, he said one of the concerns raised by African youth was that of data privacy and security from health care workers alongside online platforms.
“Is there anyone else who’s having access to that data? And if they are, what should happen? Because many of them have not disclosed their HIV status to their friends or other people, and so they are concerned around the safety and security of their data,” he said.
While there have been reports on the European Union (EU) coming up with laws for tech giants, Mr Maleche noted the importance of African governments to regulate these companies.
“And so that’s where we are concerned around the private sector. in the private spaces that are running these apps, that are running these technologies, what steps that they put into place to ensure that the young people are protected from any forms of violation or any issues that are likely to affect them.
” So that’s safeguarding us, which is why we are holding governments accountable, UN agencies and development partners to play a leading role to provide guidance, documents to provide guidance to governments or for government centers to develop laws and policies that will be able to guide how people interact in these spaces in a manner that is respectful to everyone. Thank you so much,” he said.
Ms Maria Malomalo, the senior international research manager at Restless Development Zimbabwe said it was importanr to engage youths in research instead of just researching about them.
“So, our thinking is that, you know, oftentimes we think young people are not able to conduct and that they cannot be engaged in research processes, but they are very key in terms of collecting the insights which matter most to them, and often peers speak to peers, and it’s one thing that most institutions don’t think about. So we need to engage young people whenever we are conducting our research so that whatever insights come from that can influence programming and can also influence advocacy processes,” she said
DARE Organization Co-founder Dr. Lilian Benjamin Mwakyosi said amongst the other challenges facing youths in Africa when trying to access Sexual Reproductive Health Rights information are the issues of data affordability and accessibility.
