​1. Are you familiarwith the child helpline(s) in your country?

At Telenor we realize that young people are the keenest explorers of the online world, and the risk of them becoming victims of exploitation, bullying, abuse, fraud or exposure to unsuitable content, remains high. We believe children should receive meaningful education in how to avoid the dangers. And if they have had an untoward experience, they should have somewhere to turn to other than their parents. Across Telenor Group, our business units aim to strive for the following

  • Reach out to schools to grow awareness and provide education to children, parents, guardians and teachers
  • Ensure guidance on the availability of meaningful and easy-to-use parental controls
  • Provide access to toll-free child helplines with capacity to support children who have been exposed to harm
  • Make available effective mechanisms for reporting illegal and harmful content
  • Maintain effective mechanisms to prevent the spread of child sexual abuse

We work with the likes of UNICEF and CHI to further child rights and child helplines in our markets.

2. Are you supporting the child helpline(s) in your country? If so, which one(s)? If not, would you like to support the child helpline in your country?

We are providing support to helplines in many of our markets. In several others, we are in discussions. For examples, scroll below

3. When did yoursupportorcollaborationwith thenationalchild helpline(s) in your countrystart?
It started as early as 1984 in Norway and as recent as 2015 in Bangladesh/India.

4. What does the support you provide entail? (e.g. waivingcosts, raising awareness in local media, providing training, infrastructure support, issuing supportive regulation)

Support includes waiving costs, raising awareness through customer contact and marketing channels/website/campaigns etc, funding for infrastructure/operational support, building digital helpline platform, and training for staff. Building on our contacts with Child Helpline International, we also provided supportto the CHI Asian Regional Consultation in 2015, in order to help educate helpline staff be better able to assist children who have had a negative online experience.

Malaysia - Digi makes access to Talian Nur and Childline 15999 easy through free calls
Since March 2015, affected families – especially children in Malaysia, have been making free calls to 15999 Talian Nur and Childline from all Digi prepaid and postpaid numbers. Talian Nur is a hotline link to enable early intervention for victims of domestic violence and natural disasters, while 15999 Childline is a confidential 24-hour helpline for children and young people to seek information, share feelings and get needed help.
This has been achieved in partnership with the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development Malaysia (KPWKM) and Childline Malaysia. /
The free calls are an extension to the CyberSAFE in Schools programme, a programme by CyberSecurity Malaysia, the Ministry Education Malaysia, Childline Malaysia and Digi.centre operators.
India–Telenor India embeds SIMs with child helpline number
Through its partnership with Child Helpline, all Telenor India SIMs come embedded with 1098 number, which means the number is available on the customer’s default phonebook. This gives a direct and one touch access to the helpline. Customers can dial this free number and seek help on anything related to child rights and abuse.
This has been recognized by the GSMA as an example of how operators deploy their customer contact and marketing channels creatively to help raise the profile of the national child helpline and its phone number. /
The initiative, which was launched in February 2016, builds on Telenor India’sWebwise program, which aims to build resilience amongst children by guiding them on how to be safe online.
Bangladesh – Child Help Line 1098 extended to support more vulnerable children
Grameenphone partnered with UNICEF to support extension of the first-ever ‘Child Help Line – 1098’ in Bangladesh in 2015.The toll-free service is implemented by the Department of Social Services under the Ministry of Social Welfare and supported by UNICEFin collaboration with partner NGO - Aprajayo Bangladesh.
Grameenphone is supporting the extension to an additional 10 Upazillas (sub-districts) and two City Corporations.
In June 2016, Grameenphone arranged call-management training for the Child Helpline facilitators, to better prepare them at handling all kinds of child-safety related issues.The trainer mainly focused on the basics of Customer Service, what customers want, how to deal with difficult customers, how to handle difficult questions and to improve interpersonal communication skills. /

Norway – Telenor Norway supporting Red Cross child helpline since 1984
The Norwegian helpline Kors påhalsen (Cross your Heart), which has partnered with Telenor Norway over many years, has seen an increase in traffic to their channels following the move to include younger children, particularly from 11 and 12 year olds. Many came forward with regrets they harboured with respect to their own online behaviour.
Telenor Norway has zero charging for the Red Cross hotline since its inception in 1984. Telenor Norway has also enabled Kors påhaslen to market the service through various campaigns. They are also a partner in Telenor Norway’s largest school tour against digital bullying. /
Telenor Norway also provides annual funding to the helplineto help improve its ability to reach out to and support children in an effective way.
Serbia – Telenor Serbia’s SOS application to support victims of digital bullying
Telenor, UNICEF and Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, have created aSOS platform​for helping young victims of digital bullying, within the project "Stop digital bullying", which they have been implementing together several years.The application, first of this kind in Serbia, is accessible on Facebook page"Chose words – stop hate speech". It enables victims to report digital bullying and get the necessary expert help online, while remaining anonymous.The application is available 365 days a year, from 7:00 a.m. till midnight. /