ED: Children for children

Congratulations to Sadat Rahman, the 17-year-old from Narail in Bangladesh, who won the 2020 KidsRights International Children’s Peace Prize -- an award that has previously been won by the likes of Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg.

What is particularly heartening, is that he won this award by developing a mobile app to help teenagers report cyberbullying and cyber-crime, a problem that becomes more and more serious in Bangladesh as the country moves towards more digitization, and more children get access to being on the internet.

Cyberbullying and online predatory behaviour is unfortunately nothing new, but have reached unprecedented levels during the pandemic. It cannot be stated enough how grave a threat this is for the future of children worldwide, and as such, governments across the world must remain pro-active in combating it.

Youngsters like Sadat Rahman should serve as an inspiration to not only the youth of Bangladesh, but people of all ages, not to mention the government itself.

The government, for its part, must now support him in every way possible as he further develops this app that won him the award, and hopefully progresses towards becoming a leader in the fight against cyberbullying and online harassment.

However, one boy’s vision and talent, though a good starting point, will not be sufficient to extinguish the malady that is cyberbullying. It is time the authorities concerned recognize that we have a growing problem, and take inspiration from the likes of Sadat Rahman and help to create an environment where victims of cyberbullying are never silenced. They deserve to be heard.