The internet has become one of the most powerful environments in which children grow up today. It educates, entertains, connects, and increasingly, it harms. From unregulated content and online exploitation to cyberbullying and algorithm-driven addiction, children are navigating a digital world that was never designed with their vulnerability in mind.
As a lawyer, I believe the question is no longer whether children need protection online, but whether our legal frameworks are adequate to meet the scale and speed of modern digital risks.
Children today are raised in a borderless internet. Unlike playgrounds or classrooms, the digital space has no clear jurisdiction, no closing hours, and very little meaningful supervision. Yet the consequences of harm are deeply personal and long-lasting.
Exposure to extreme content, manipulation by online predators, and relentless social comparison have been linked to anxiety, depression, and developmental harm. While parents and educators are often told to “monitor” or “limit screen time,” the burden of protection has been unfairly shifted onto families, rather than shared with institutions that profit from children’s online presence.
From a legal perspective, this gap is striking.
Most existing child protection laws in Ghana: The Children’s Act, 1998 (Act 560), Article 28 of the 1992 Constitution, Domestic Violence Act 2007,(Act 732), Human Trafficking Act 2005 (Act 694), Child and Family Welfare Policy (2014), were all drafted for a pre-digital era, focusing on physical spaces, direct contact, and clearly identifiable perpetrators. The internet disrupts all three because harm now comes from anonymous users, automated systems, or platforms headquartered thousands of miles away. Responsibility is diffused, enforcement is fragmented, and accountability is often elusive. These laws do not specifically address online or digital environments, meaning there is limited statutory protection for children online (e.g., cyberbullying, harmful content, privacy, etc.) as distinct from physical harm. Ghana has strong child protection laws on the books, but enforcement and modern challenges like internet-related harms remain areas where policy and legal clarity are still developing.
In the United States, laws such as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), 15 U.S.C §6501, et seq. addresses the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information about children collected from children through websites or other online services. This law attempts to safeguard children’s data, but they fall short of addressing broader harms such as algorithmic amplification of harmful content, targeted advertising to minors, or the psychological effects of constant digital surveillance. Meanwhile, platforms frequently rely on age-verification disclaimers that are easy to bypass and difficult to enforce, allowing them to claim compliance without meaningful protection.
Courts have begun to grapple with these challenges, but judicial responses remain cautious. Judges are often asked to balance child protection against free speech, innovation, and corporate autonomy. This tension is real, but it should not paralyse action. The law has long recognised that children occupy a special status, deserving of heightened protection. We restrict child labour, mandate education, and regulate industries that affect children’s health and safety. The digital world should not be treated as an exception.
What would a more child-centred legal approach look like?
First, it would move beyond parental consent as the primary safeguard and place affirmative duties on platforms on the internet that design, host, and profit from child engagement. This includes obligations to conduct child-impact assessments, limit addictive design features, and proactively prevent exposure to extreme or age-inappropriate content.
Second, it would embrace regulatory cooperation across borders. The internet does not stop at national boundaries, and neither should child protection. Comparative developments, such as the United Kingdom’s Age-Appropriate Design Code (Children’s Code) 2020, and elements of the European Union’s Digital Services framework, offer important lessons on how law can shape safer digital environments without stifling innovation.
Third, it would recognise access to a safe digital environment as part of children’s broader rights. Just as children are entitled to safety in schools and public spaces, they should be entitled to reasonable protection online. This is not about censorship; it is about proportional responsibility and ethical design.
As a lawyer trained and practising in Ghana, I have observed how different legal systems respond to technological change, particularly where children are concerned. One lesson is constant across jurisdictions: the law tends to evolve only when harm becomes undeniable and when society collectively accepts that inaction is no longer defensible. With children, however, delay carries a particularly high cost. The United Kingdom has moved furthest in translating traditional child welfare principles into the digital space, imposing affirmative duties on online platforms through frameworks such as the Online Safety Act 2023 and Age-Appropriate Design Standards.
The United States, by contrast, has largely confined child protection online to privacy-focused statutes and constitutional free-speech constraints, placing significant responsibility on parents and voluntary corporate practices. Ghana, while anchored in strong child protection laws grounded in welfare and best-interest principles, has yet to meaningfully adapt its legal frameworks to address online harms facing children. Taken together, these approaches reveal a global gap: although the risks confronting children online are increasingly similar across borders, the legal protections available to them remain uneven and underdeveloped.
The internet is not going away. It holds immense promise for learning, creativity, and global connection. But without deliberate legal intervention, it will continue to expose children to risks they are ill-equipped to navigate alone. Protecting children online is not solely a parental task, a technological challenge, or a moral debate. It is a legal responsibility, one that demands clarity, courage, and a willingness to rethink how we regulate power in the digital age.
