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What if your Ghanaian child sued you for sharing their images?

In some parts of the world, children are being given the opportunity to sue their parents or any other person they believe have shared their images on social media. What if it happened in Ghana?

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This was Mrs Claudia Darko's post on her page immediately after she delivered and was fit enough to start writing on social media. The post was accompanied by an image of the newborn baby. Since then Mrs Darko has documented almost every step of his son’s life on social media, especially Facebook. But will Baby Kojo Darko be happy when he grows up and sees pictures of him sitting on a chamberpot on social media?

Mrs Darko is not alone in a world where a lot of people who have access to social media often share memorable moments of their children online.

Some of the images and videos shared by parents and family relations can be embarrassing, while others are beautiful, others which are shared could have remained a family secret only the family could enjoy.

In some parts of the world, children are being given the opportunity to sue their parents or any other person they believe have shared their embarrassing images on social media.

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Recently in Austria, an 18-year-old girl has sued her parents for such an act. She described her childhood pictures posted by her parents as embarrassing.

She said several attempts to get her parents to take the pictures down have been unsuccessful.

What if this happened in Ghana?

According to internetworldstats.com as at June 2016, Ghana had 7,958,675 internet users. 3,500,000 of the internet users were Facebook subscribers with a penetration rate of 13.0%. This implies that the internet usage in Ghana is growing.

In another research by The Parent Zone, a UK based site devoted to Internet safety and parenting in the digital age, it showed that the average parent will post almost 1,000 photos of their child online before he/she turns five.

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The survey also showed that 53% of the photos are posted on Facebook, while the remainder is posted on Twitter, Instagram and other social media sites. A quarter of the 2000 parents used for the research say they never ask permission from their children before sharing them and nearly one-fifth of parents have never checked their privacy settings.

In Ghana, the practice is becoming more common as social media users even share images of babies with the Vernix caseosa (the waxy or cheese-like white substance found coating the skin of newborn human babies) even before they have their first bath.

People share these moments for various reasons. Queenstar Kotey is the mother of 21-month old Seyram, for her, she shares her son’s pictures as a form of thanking God.

“I share his pictures to tell the whole world what the Lord has done for me. God has been good to me in many ways especially when it comes to my Seyram. And I feel proud sharing the memories and his poses with the world.”

However, for Sandra Yankson, cuteness is reason enough for sharing photos of her nephew.

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“Because I feel happy sharing my moments as well as other close people on social media. Again he is so cute, I get excited when people give lovely comment on his pictures and say good things about him.”

There are others on social media who have shared pictures of their children but never shown the faces of the children. An example is Ghollywood actress Nadia Buari.

Since the confirmation of the birth of her twins in March 2015, she has shared photos of the children but never showed their faces.

Father of Leila and Hasiya, Abdul Rahman Alhassan says he needed to announce his joy to his entire family but also wanted to respect the privacy of his toddlers.

“My entire family is not in Ghana, some live in other parts of the world. I can’t send the same image to everyone announcing the birth of my children; the best thing is to put it on Facebook with a photo as proof. But I also respect the privacy of my girls irrespective of how tiny they are.”

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So to the Ghanaians who have shared all sorts of images of their children on social media, what if their children sue them?

Most Ghanaian parents who share the image of their children do not believe their children can sue them.

Sandra is optimistic his nephew will not sue him even if he doesn’t like the pictures shared on social media. “He won’t. This is Ghana. Family ties are strong enough to break a court rule.”

But for Queenstar she believes being the mother of Seyram alone gives her enough opportunity to stop him from doing any such thing.

“I've not thought of that because we're in Ghana. More so he's under my control. He will forever be my son and he will listen to me more often. Even if he is given the option to sue me I know he will not do it because I will forever be his mother.”

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Currently, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection on their national child protection agenda is putting together a policy to protect children from such internet exposures.

The policy is expected to deal with the use of the internet by children and security measures put in place for them and also the role other stakeholders have to play to ensure the safety of the children.

They policy will also elaborate on the level of privacy children must enjoy on social media especially and what role parents together with other stakeholders play in ensuring such confidentiality.

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