Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Child pro­tec­tion and ad­vo­ca­cy groups have wel­comed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ac­knowl­edge­ment that stronger mea­sures are need­ed to pro­tect chil­dren on­line, but cau­tion that an out­right ban on so­cial me­dia would be too ex­treme.

On Tues­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar post­ed on X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter) that her Gov­ern­ment is pre­pared to con­sid­er leg­is­la­tion to reg­u­late so­cial me­dia use for chil­dren un­der the age of 12.

Her com­ments fol­lowed a call by Arch­bish­op Charles Ja­son Gor­don for re­stric­tions sim­i­lar to those be­ing ex­plored in Aus­tralia, aimed at curb­ing self-harm and sui­cide among young peo­ple.

“His con­cerns are valid. Our chil­dren must be safe­guard­ed from harm,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed that while so­cial me­dia has be­come a pow­er­ful tool for com­mu­ni­ca­tion and free ex­pres­sion, it al­so pos­es se­ri­ous risks to chil­dren, in­clud­ing ex­po­sure to harm­ful con­tent, ex­ploita­tion, bul­ly­ing, ha­rass­ment, pornog­ra­phy, pae­dophiles and ma­nip­u­la­tion.

She added that the courts have al­ready recog­nised the harm that can re­sult from the spread of false and ma­li­cious in­for­ma­tion on­line.

“Yet too many de­cent, pri­vate, law-abid­ing cit­i­zens lack the means to de­fend them­selves against anony­mous and face­less at­tack­ers,” she said.

How­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter stressed that any blan­ket ban on adults would con­sti­tute an un­ac­cept­able in­fringe­ment on free­dom of speech and ex­pres­sion. She al­so urged par­ents to re­main vig­i­lant as dis­cus­sions on reg­u­la­tion con­tin­ue.

“Mon­i­tor the de­vices your chil­dren use and the con­tent they are ex­posed to. Tech­nol­o­gy can­not re­place a par­ent’s guid­ance, val­ues and care,” she said.

A spokesper­son for Child­Line, a not-for-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion that works close­ly with Unit­ed Na­tions agen­cies to pro­vide pro­tec­tion and psy­choso­cial sup­port to chil­dren, said many young peo­ple re­ly on so­cial me­dia to com­mu­ni­cate, con­nect and so­cialise. At­tempt­ing to ban or heav­i­ly re­strict it, he said, would be an over­ly sim­plis­tic so­lu­tion that does not re­flect how young peo­ple live to­day.

He not­ed that Child­Line’s coun­selling ser­vices al­ready see the ef­fects of fear of miss­ing out (FO­MO), and warned that a sud­den na­tion­wide ban could in­ten­si­fy feel­ings of iso­la­tion and anx­i­ety among chil­dren.
In­stead of bans, he said, greater em­pha­sis should be placed on su­per­vi­sion, ed­u­ca­tion and mean­ing­ful en­gage­ment with chil­dren in dig­i­tal spaces.

The Child­Line spokesper­son said that in 2025, the or­gan­i­sa­tion re­ceived 51 con­tacts from chil­dren aged 13 to 17 re­lat­ed to on­line safe­ty con­cerns. These in­clud­ed ex­po­sure to in­ap­pro­pri­ate dig­i­tal con­tent, the shar­ing of nude im­ages, on­line groom­ing and cy­ber­bul­ly­ing.

Con­ven­er of the Child­hood Jus­tice Col­lec­tive, ac­tivist Mar­cus Kissoon, said ev­i­dence shows that most child sex­u­al abuse oc­curs with­in fam­i­lies and fa­mil­iar en­vi­ron­ments, not on­line.

While wel­com­ing dis­cus­sion on on­line safe­ty and groom­ing, Kissoon stressed that safe­guard­ing must be holis­tic and ad­dress harm in both dig­i­tal and non-dig­i­tal spaces.

“School-age chil­dren, most­ly girls, com­plain of un­want­ed street ha­rass­ment while in uni­form. Groom­ing with­in the home and among trust­ed adults re­mains large­ly un­der­es­ti­mat­ed, hid­den and in­ad­e­quate­ly ad­dressed, with lim­it­ed ac­count­abil­i­ty,” he said.

“As child safe­guard­ing frame­works are re­viewed, the State must adopt a holis­tic ap­proach that ad­dress­es harm across both dig­i­tal and non-dig­i­tal con­texts.”

Kissoon added that strength­en­ing healthy par­ent–child re­la­tion­ships must be pri­ori­tised as a pri­ma­ry pro­tec­tive fac­tor against abuse and harm­ful ex­po­sure.

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Sec­ondary Schools Par­ent Sup­port Group, Rachiel Ram­samooj, said she sup­ports reg­u­lat­ing so­cial me­dia for chil­dren un­der 12 but wants clar­i­ty on whether this would in­volve an out­right ban or plat­form-spe­cif­ic rules.

She ex­plained that chil­dren un­der 12 are still de­vel­op­ing crit­i­cal think­ing skills and an un­der­stand­ing of con­sent, and said rea­son­able reg­u­la­tion is about pro­tec­tion rather than re­strict­ing free­doms.

She added that age-ap­pro­pri­ate safe­guards, com­bined with on­line risk aware­ness and vig­i­lant parental guid­ance, re­flect a bal­anced and re­spon­si­ble ap­proach con­sis­tent with glob­al trends.

Founder of Cy­ber­SafeTT and dig­i­tal an­thro­pol­o­gist Daren Dho­ray echoed calls for cy­ber safe­ty ed­u­ca­tion to be in­te­grat­ed in­to the na­tion­al school cur­ricu­lum and sup­port­ed by na­tion­wide pub­lic aware­ness cam­paigns.
He ar­gued that ed­u­ca­tion of­fers long-term pro­tec­tion com­pared with tem­po­rary bans, cau­tion­ing that re­stric­tions could push chil­dren to­wards un­reg­u­lat­ed plat­forms, es­sen­tial mes­sag­ing ser­vices such as What­sApp, or even the dark web.

Dho­ray al­so warned that age-based re­stric­tions are of­ten eas­i­ly by­passed, ex­pos­ing chil­dren who use false iden­ti­ties to adult al­go­rithms, harm­ful con­tent and on­line preda­tors.