Dhaka: A 17-year-old Bangladeshi teenager has been awarded a prestigious global children’s award for taking action against cyberbullying and an online crime against children. Sadat Rahman has been conferred with the 2020 KidsRights International Children’s Peace Prize for achievement only few can think about. Rahman developed a mobile app to help teenagers report cyber bullying and cyber crime in the western district of Narail in Bangladesh.
“Serious action needs to be taken right now. Teenagers continue to remain vulnerable to online crime and cyber bullying, particularly in the times we live in,” Rahman said in a remote interview. The ceremony, hosted by a Netherlands-based KidsRights foundation, was held online this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Rahman has followed the footsteps of Nobel laureate and Pakistani education campaigner Malala Yousafzai and the Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg. His mobile app is called "Cyber Teens" and puts children in contact with a team of youngsters, termed as Narail Volunteers. Rahman, too, is a part of this team of volunteers. This team then gets in contact with the local police officers and social workers and helps the victims out of situations of cyber bullying.
The app also has a section of helpful tips and hints about different kinds of online behaviour, and tips about how to identify and avoid getting in contact with sexual predators of the internet.
As of now, the app has been downloaded around 1,800 times and the volume been successful in resolving nearly 60 complaints of youngsters so far. On the basis of these complaints, eight criminals have also been arrested by the local police officials. The complaints received had adults sending inappropriate messages and pornographic content to children
