The internet offers Namibian children exciting and advanced opportunities, like online learning, creative outlets, and social connections, but every click brings potential dangers too.
Children are spending more time on social platforms than what their parents, guardians, and teachers realise, and the law unfortunately is not fully equipped to monitor or safeguard our children from such dangers. Online sexual exploitation and abuse of children is a problem.
These crimes are constantly evolving and are often underreported.
The risks are not hypothetical. In one of the most alarming cases, the Namibian Police, arrested a former Namibian policeman (51) in April 2020 on 75 charges, including rape, the production of child pornography, and child trafficking.
This is a stark reminder that Namibia is plugged into a global exploitation network, not insulated from it.
The 2022 ‘Disrupting Harm’ report introduced by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare put numbers to the problem.
The research was conducted by End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism (Ecpat), Interpol, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), with the support of the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children through its Safe Online initiative.
Roughly 20 000 children aged between 12 and 17 reported clear cases of online sexual exploitation and abuse, with most offenders known to the child, and social media platforms featuring heavily as the point of contact.
What makes Namibia’s situation distinct is that much of its existing legal protection was written for a pre-internet world. Laws were built around physical contact offences and printed publications.
Much of the current fight against online danger relies on stretching older statutes to cover new behaviour, rather than laws designed for it from the start.
The Child Care and Protection Act 3 of 2015 covers offences aimed at preventing sexual and economic exploitation of children, child safety, and abuse or neglect.
Its protections can extend to online contexts, for example, where a child is groomed or sexually exploited through social media, and it requires certain professionals, such as teachers, church and traditional leaders, and healthcare practitioners, to report suspected abuse.
Failure to report is a crime and punishable by a fine of up to N$20 000 or imprisonment of up to five years, or both.
One of the most significant protections under the Combating of Rape Amended Act 4 of 2022 is what counts as ‘coercive circumstances’.
It covers abuse of power or authority that leaves someone unable to show resistance or express unwillingness. This moves the law beyond physical force or explicit threats.
There is no longer a need to prove violence if an adult built up trust or authority over a child, including through an online relationship, and used that dynamic to prevent resistance.
In practice, a groomer spends months online building a child’s trust, then meets them in person and abuses them.
The child may never fight back or say no, not because they consent, but because the incident makes refusal feel impossible. Under the law, that power imbalance itself counts as coercion.
Section 14 of the Combating of Immoral Practices Amendment Act 7 of 2000 criminalises anyone who solicits or entices a child who is under the age of 16 and more than three years older than such a child into a sexual or indecent act, punishable by a substantial fine or up to 10 years’ imprisonment.
Namibia has also built a strong framework through international treaties, anchored by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which mandates protecting children from sexual exploitation.
The Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children and Child Pornography requires criminalising trafficking and pornography, critical for addressing online exploitation.
The Trafficking Protocol obliges Namibia to combat trafficking, while International Labour Organisation Convention No. 182 targets the worst forms of child labour, including pornography and prostitution.
Regionally, Namibia has signed the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the African Union Convention on Cybersecurity to strengthen data protection.
The Rape Act and Immoral Practices Act criminalise coercion and solicitation, but neither names grooming or sextortion as standalone crimes.
The Publications Act’s application to online material remains uncertain rather than explicit.
The Communications Act gives providers data-security duties, but no obligation to detect or report child sexual abuse material, and Namibia’s absence from the Budapest Convention limits cross-border cooperation on digital evidence.
These gaps fuel an urgent call for dedicated legislation like the proposed Combating of Sexual Exploitation Bill.
As Unicef’s Disrupting Harm Report notes, individual laws can be stretched to apply, but none were designed for online harm.
Closing that gap is exactly what the proposed combating of sexual exploitation bill aims to do. The proposed law broadly covers crimes of sexual exploitation, not only online but offline, to provide best possible protection for exposed groups such as children.
If you know or believe a child is a victim of sexual harassment, criminal exploitation, or abuse, report it to the police immediately or contact a social worker.
Sexual exploitation and sexual abuse are among the worst forms of violence against children in Namibia.
*This column was made possible by support from the Hanns Seidel Foundation. This content does not purport to reflect the views and opinions of the foundation.
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