Children in chains: How Iraq’s digital safety fails the ‘Online Generation’
Shafaq News
Iraq's Strategic Center for Human Rights has recently highlighted the increasing digital risks confronting the children of Iraq—a warning that surfaced quietly, almost as a footnote in the news cycle.
At first glance, it seemed like another routine alert about cyberbullying, dangerous apps, or the usual “internet risks.” Yet beneath the cautious language lies a deeper story—one exposing a national system struggling to respond, legal protections stalled in draft form, and a country where most families navigate the digital world without guidance, maps, or a hotline to call when problems arise.
According to global UNICEF estimates, a child goes online every half second. It is a stark reminder that the digital world is no longer peripheral for young Iraqis—it is central to their lives. With more than 300 million children worldwide facing online risks each year, Iraq’s vulnerabilities are tangible, lived experiences.
A 2023 UNICEF survey illustrated how deeply connected Iraqi children already are: 78% of children aged 10 to 14 access the internet daily via smartphones, often without supervision or boundaries. Even more concerning, 40% reported encountering harassment or inappropriate content—a figure suggesting a crisis. Families may assume that someone—schools, ministries, or platforms—has built guardrails for children. But closer inspection reveals the opposite: a system riddled with gaps.
Call Unanswered
For years, Iraq has relied on fragmented mechanisms for reporting digital crimes—generic police hotlines, overburdened cybercrime units, or Facebook pages where families contact officers directly. The country lacks the most basic foundation of a modern child-protection system: a national hotline dedicated to children’s digital safety.
Families often avoid official channels, fearing stigma, retaliation, or digital humiliation amplified on social media. Some worry that reporting could expose their children further rather than protect them. Others do not know which authority to approach. Without a trusted, confidential hotline, cases quietly vanish—handled privately, overlooked, or dismissed before reaching prosecutors.
This gap becomes more alarming when juxtaposed with prevalence data. If 40% of children are exposed to harmful content or harassment, Iraq should receive tens of thousands of complaints annually. Yet official case numbers remain far lower—either because families do not report, or because the system fails to document what happens online. Behind every missing statistic, however, is a real child confronting real threats.
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Default Danger
If external systems fail, the defenses inside Iraqi homes are scarcely stronger. The Ministry of Communications documented this stark reality: 62% of households do not enable parental-control features on devices used by minors, and 78% never adjust default privacy settings on popular apps—messaging platforms, short-video apps, and gaming services.
A 2023 UNICEF survey reinforces this point: nearly four out of five children aged 10 to 14 are online daily, usually via their own smartphones, while only 11% of parents monitor their children’s activity effectively.
A 2024 study by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs went further, conducting device-access tests modeled on international online-safety lab standards but tailored to Iraq. Smartphones and tablets from Baghdad and Basra markets were examined in conditions typical for families: fresh out of the box, with pre-installed apps and default settings intact.
The results leave little doubt. Most devices arrive with disabled filters, unrestricted browsers, open app stores, and permissions automatically granting apps access to contacts, photos, and location data. Platforms popular among Iraqi children—TikTok, Telegram, Snapchat—require multiple steps to enable safety features, many of which parents do not know exist.
Social workers involved in the study even observed children unintentionally sharing personal information, clicking scam links, or interacting with strangers posing as peers, while investigators from Iraq’s Community Police Directorate encountered cases where children were added to groups circulating harmful material within minutes of registering on certain apps.
These incidents are not exceptions. They reflect a system where child safety relies entirely on parental knowledge—or the lack of it.
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Paper Protection
On paper, Iraq recognizes the risks facing minors online. Drafts of the long-awaited Child Protection Law include provisions to shield children from exploitation. Cybercrime regulations exist, and prosecutors theoretically have legal tools.
Yet most of these measures falter when confronted with real digital threats.
The Child Protection Law remains in draft form, and its online-safety clauses lack clear operational mechanisms. Prosecutors continue to rely on outdated statutes,
forcing modern crimes into ill-fitting legal categories. Digital harassment, image-based extortion, algorithm-driven exposure, and platform-enabled luring lack straightforward legal pathways.
When families report violations, cases scatter across a patchwork of institutions: the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Communications, courts, and private platforms, none of which coordinate effectively.
Platforms themselves operate with near-total opacity in Iraq. There is no requirement for them to respond swiftly or transparently to authorities. Families often assume platforms will intervene, but response mechanisms remain slow, delayed, and inconsistent. Law promises protection, but practice delivers uncertainty.
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Hidden Trauma
What the Strategic Center listed—cyberbullying, luring, data theft, exposure to inappropriate content, breaches of accounts—reads like a catalogue of digital harms. Behind each category is a child experiencing something that can shape their emotional and psychological world long after the screen turns off.
These threats appear as trauma, extortion, reputational fear, or withdrawal because children do not know where to turn. The Strategic Center urged families to activate parental controls, adjust privacy settings, enable two-factor authentication, and maintain open communication. Yet even these measures highlight a larger truth: families are compensating for a national system that has not kept pace with digital realities.
A 12-year-old in Basra receiving a threatening message on a gaming app should not leave parents guessing which authority will respond. A teenager in Baghdad facing extortion should not depend on whichever officer happens to read a report. Across Iraq, children encountering harmful content at alarming rates should not have their safety rely on isolated initiatives, parental improvisation, or luck.
Iraq needs coordination, clarity, and a national strategy. Yet, for now, children confront a digital world that moves faster than the protections are meant to shield them.
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Written and edited by Shafaq News staff.
