The Safer Internet Centre presented

On 2 September in Osijek, the Centre for Missing and Abused Children held a press conference as part of the project entitled "Safer Internet Centre Croatia: Making Internet a good and safe place".

The coordinator of the project, financed by the European Union, is the J. J. Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the partners are the Centre for Missing and Abused Children, the telecom operator Terrakom and the City of Osijek. The value of the project is €236,198.00, of which the EU finances €118,099.00 (50%), while the remaining 50% is co-financed by the lead partner and the project partners.

As part of the project a website has also been set up, Safer Internet Centre, consisting of a Helpline for advising children and parents and a Hotline for receiving public reports concerning illegal content on the internet, which will serve as a national reporting platform available to everyone. Besides the Helpline and the Hotline, a Centre for support and information for parents and children will also be established.

"Last year 141 cases of sexual abuse of children over the internet or the use of children for pornography were recorded in Croatia, which is far too many", said the coordinator of the Centre for Missing and Abused Children, Boris Radanović, at the conference.

Research and education

The project also envisages the development of a mobile application that will teach children about safer internet use, how to protect their personal data and how to protect themselves from sexting. In addition, a national survey on safe internet use will be conducted involving 90 schools from 22 towns in the Republic of Croatia. The results obtained will serve as the basis for academic papers and a curriculum that will enter university education programmes.

When it comes to education on internet safety, the project envisages training for psychologists in primary and secondary schools, webinars for web detectives (children trained to recognise and report harmful content) and training for police officers (violence prevention). The project will bring new and interesting tools for combating violence on the internet (development of a game that can be downloaded from the SIC website).

Besides the activities envisaged for implementation and monitoring (Management and Advisory Board, project team), the project also envisages a wide range of promotional activities.

"At the Centre for Missing and Abused Children a series of services is planned that will present safe internet use to children in an interesting and educational way and give them the information they need to distinguish good content from bad", noted the Centre’s project manager, Jelena Gilja.

Call the free 0800 line!

The successful implementation of the project activities requires the establishment of a free 0800 number that will provide children, young people, parents and professionals working with children with continuous help and support through counselling. The advice line will be available every working day from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Through this line users can obtain advice or information on how to deal with inappropriate content on the internet, inappropriate contact and how to cope with such an experience. They will also be able to report through this line any content they consider inappropriate. The telephone line will be available across the whole of Croatia, and advice and help will be provided by a professional — a psychologist.

There is also a Facebook handbook produced in cooperation with European safer internet centres, provided free of charge to children and parents. It covers basic information to help young people and parents better understand the basic functions and ways of protecting themselves on Facebook.