It's illegal to share pornographic images of children online - Communications Minister

Minister for Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has warned that anyone who shares pornographic images of children commits a crime and can be prosecuted for that.

Speaking at the Child Online Protection Conference in Accra on Wednesday, the Minister said sharing such images is against the laws of Ghana asking anyone who receives them to delete and not share.

She said, “We also quite happily share pornographic images of children when we get them with all our comments. It’s illegal, so please as soon as somebody sends you any such image delete it, don’t pass it on”.

The Minister noted that such images which are usually shared via social media remain online permanently and comes back to hurt the people in the video adding that many people lost some good job opportunities due to the things they shared online in the past.

“For many employers now, when you apply for a position in their establishment, they go online to check your backgrounds are … People have lost job opportunities because of the images they shared online many years ago not thinking about the future repercussions of that,” she said.

She urged parents to be mindful of what they share online to protect their families and also pay attention to what their children do online.

Senior Policy Manager at the GSM Association, Africa (GSMA), Shola Sanni added that people who share images of children being abused are considered to be part of the perpetrators of such abuse even if they condemn the act as they share the images.

She noted that stakeholders are working on getting laws to punish child abusers.

She said, “these crimes against children in our online space are not adequately provided for in the legal framework. So that’s one area where countries such as Ghana want to look at and make sure that the laws are solid enough to punish and discourage offenders from perpetrating crime against children in the online space”.

The Child Online Protection Conference is part of activities to mark the National Cyber Security week which is under the theme “Securing Ghana’s Digital Journey”.