THE theme on the protection of children in cyberspace for this year's Telecommunications and Information Society Day is most appropriate and needs to be implemented for the Internet to have a positive impact on the development of children.

Although it is indisputable that the Internet greatly contributes to the academic growth of children, this important resource can equally have a negative impact on children when used without proper guidance.

As acting Communications and Transport Minister Felix Mutati observes in the story we have carried today, the main danger for children is that they may access inappropriate information at times sent to them by friends.

Such information could be invitations to join global child pornography groups, enrollment into satanic cults and other undesirable vices that would have otherwise remained unknown without the information super highway.

Although the Internet is not as widely used in Zambia as in developed countries, these statistics are fast changing and there is need to put in place measures to protect children from straying into wrong sites once in cyberspace.

Many homes and schools are now hooked to the Internet and this makes the resource available to children with curious minds to explore all areas and discover what may appear hidden.

Parents, guardians and teachers, therefore, have a duty to ensure that as the children wander into cyberspace, their movement is restricted to sites that will help them develop into responsible adults and not those that will spoil them.

Parents should monitor the movements of the children by checking the sites that they visit since these reflect even after someone logs out.

It is also possible to install computer programmes that would automatically bar children from accessing sites which the parents or guardians feel are not fit for the children to view.

The other way of protecting the children is to simply put the computers in open places like the living room where parents and other members of the family are able to see what the children are surfing instead of letting them do that in secluded places such as bedrooms.

Adults should also resist the temptation of using children in pornography and other illegal rings that have lately been on the rise.

Law enforcement officers equally have a duty to investigate and prosecute cyber crimes related to the abuse of children.

Protecting children as they explore the Internet is an important task which requires the keen support of all well-meaning people.