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The Forum for Development and Human Rights Dialogue (FDHRD) issues its report: Online Games Threaten Children’s Right to Life

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Today, Sunday, January 22, 2023, The Forum for Development and Human Rights Dialogue (FDHRD) publishes its report, Online Games Threaten Children’s Right to Life. It deals with the phenomenon of suicide, which has begun to spread among children and adolescents due to addiction to online games. It deals with this serious problem through several methods. The themes are: defining online games, presenting examples of these games, clarifying the reasons for children’s attachment to them, and their danger to children, presenting some of the victims of these games among children and adolescents in Egypt, as well as presenting international and Egyptian efforts to reduce the danger of these games on children and adolescents, and finally presenting some recommendations.

Egypt has recently witnessed an astonishing spread of violent electronic games that have invaded most homes and posed a great danger to children. These games have caused many children and adolescents to commit suicide in implementation of the game’s orders.

Research and psychological studies conducted in this context have stated that electronic games cause a lot of harm to the child, especially to his physical, psychological, mental and behavioral health, and his culture in general. These games produce negative and dangerous results. A large percentage of electronic games depend on the entertainment and enjoyment of killing others, destroying their property, and attacking them unjustly. These games teach children and adolescents the methods, arts, and tricks of committing crimes, developing in their minds the capabilities of bullying and aggression, and the resulting crime. These abilities are acquired through growing accustomed to playing these games.

Despite the benefits contained in some electronic games, in the eyes of some, their disadvantages outweigh their advantages, because most of the games used by children and adolescents have negative contents that affect them in all stages of their development.

The report concluded with a number of recommendations, as follows:

  1. Parental awareness and supervision is the best and most important solution now to prevent children and adolescents from entering the world of these games, causing harm to themselves or others.
  2. Parents should choose electronic games that are appropriate for their children’s ages, and that are free from any content that harms their morals and their physical, emotional and psychological health.
  3. Parents should surround their children with care and attention, give them more time to be with them, monitor their psychological state, and any changes in their lives, and not underestimate any decline in their children’s psychological state, or changes in behavior and way of thinking.
  4. Parents should check their children’s devices regularly to monitor the applications they download and use.
  5. Parents should not allow the child to play electronic games until after completing homework.
  6. Children need to be preoccupied with school and extracurricular activities such as participating in sports, cultural or artistic clubs that nourish the body and refine the conscience.
  7. The elements of attraction, excitement and suspense that are in famous electronic games should be included and added in the production of educational games that are compatible with the customs and traditions of eastern and Arab societies.
  8. Parents need to set a daily time for the child to play electronic games and stick to it.
  9. Parents playing electronic games along with their children is an opportunity to control the quality and characteristics of the games, which helps them prevent their children from playing violent games.
  10. Legislation and laws need to be enacted to prevent the broadcasting and design of this type of electronic games based on violence and loss of life.
  11. Dangerous games must be banned, stopping their activity, especially electronic games that have proven dangerous to young people and society, including games that drive some addicts to suicide.

For his part, Saeed Abdel Hafez, Chairman of the FDHRD, stressed the need to embrace children and establish a positive family climate, encouraging children to use dialogue in regards to life experiences and facts, to help them overcome pressure, control their emotions, and practice thinking, meditation and contemplation.

Zainab Salih, a researcher at the FDHRD, warned that these games may be more harmful than violent television shows/films. They are characterized by interaction with the child and require him to assume an aggressive personality in order to play.

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