The Church of Uganda’s Family TV network has launched a “Safe Screens, Safe Kids” campaign, responding to widespread concerns that children are being exposed to inappropriate digital content, at a time when internet usage is skyrocketing. The launch event, held April 4 at Kampala’s Serena Hotel, featured speeches from church and social leaders, a panel discussion with communications experts, prayers, and youth dance performances.
“With children spending an average of 6 to 7 hours a day engaging with digital media, the campaign seeks to strike a balance between the tremendous opportunities for learning and entertainment and the potential risks lurking in the shadows,” Archbishop Stephen Kaziimba, the Ugandan primate, told the Kampala newspaper New Vision.
“By aligning with the ‘Safe Screens, Safe Kids’ campaign, you become a guardian of child safety, committed to creating a world where technology and media serve as tools for growth and enlightenment.”
Owen Mwesigye, the campaign’s founder and COU Family TV’s head of marketing, emphasized the gravity of the situation. “There is a need to have this concern solved, or else the world risks losing the future generation.”
“When a child or an old person is addicted to screens, the effects these screens have when screen time is limited is the same as drugs or alcohol. If we don’t take this seriously, today or tomorrow, your children or grandchildren will find themselves in the detox center.”
Fred Otunnu, the Ugandan Communications Commission’s director of corporate affairs, applauded the campaign’s educational focus: “We cannot protect children online only through legislation. We need a preventative approach. We have lined up partnerships to build capacity with the goal of ensuring child online protection.”
Digital access has expanded dramatically in the East African country in recent years. The number of smartphones registered in the country grew from 4.57 million in 2018 to 12.2 million at the end of 2022, meaning that 25.8 percent of the population use them. A 2023 digital data report on the country also found that 68 percent of Ugandans use a cell phone, and 24.6 percent now have internet access.
A 2020 survey by Uganda’s Communications Commission said that, regardless of their sex, children began using the internet around age 14. One in every five children said they had seen a sexual image online in the previous year.
The sale, production, and possession of pornography is illegal in Uganda, though portions of a 2021 law attempting to strengthen restrictions were struck down by the country’s high court as a violation of freedom of expression.
Kaziimba also appeared in a video released by COU Family TV that addressed parents. “We must be curious about what our children are watching, in what they are pursuing even when we are not there. What do you have in place for your children when you are not there?” he asked.
“Learn how to get the right content onto the gadgets your children are using,” added Irene Kauma, Uganda’s minister of education and sports. “They don’t need to go to a disco hall; they may be going down, down, as they stare at that gadget in the bedroom.”
The Church of Uganda campaign was launched just two days after the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released Dignitas infinita, a declaration that identifies “Digital Violence” among a series of “specific and grave violations” of human dignity in our time.
“Digital media can expose people to the risk of addiction, isolation, and gradual loss of contact with concrete reality, blocking the development of authentic interpersonal relationships. New forms of violence are spreading through social media, for example, cyberbullying. The internet is also a channel for spreading pornography and the exploitation of persons for sexual purposes or through gambling. In this way, paradoxically, the more that opportunities for making connections grow in this real, the more people find themselves isolated and impoverished in their interpersonal relationships,” the declaration says (61).
