Press releases
Back to full list of press releases.
MINNESOTA GIRL JOINS U.S. DELEGATION TO YOUTH CONGRESS IN LONDON
Friday 01 August, 2008
Sarah Nissen, 14, describes herself as a “web person.” Her natural curiosity was first stirred by trips to the Disney site with her mother when she was in second grade. Since then, the web has fed her interests in history, Japan, public speaking, horses, sewing and just about anything else that crosses her path. This summer, her interest in the web will take her to London, in person.
Miss Nissen was chosen in March from a large pool of U.S. applicants to represent the United States at the International Youth Advisory Congress (IYAC) on Online Safety and Security this summer in London. She will be part of a delegation of 20 from all around the United States, half of them girls, who will join 180 other young people from around the world who will learn how online and offline child-protection measures are created and put in place and who will have the opportunity to tell those child-safety organizations how to better protect young people online.
From July 13-22, the delegates from diverse cultures and backgrounds will have an ideal forum to communicate with each other and share their opinions. That appeals to Sarah, who enjoys public speaking because it allows her to share her opinions with others. The conference will allow them to work together on solutions to what they consider the biggest threats to the safety in the online world.
Though Sarah has not been threatened on the web, she recalls a friend shopping on the Internet for a bracelet. The teenager visited a website that offered bracelets with girls’ names. That innocent interaction resulted in a spam attack that ruined the family computer. Sarah says that lesson stayed with her and has caused her to use a lot of caution in what she does on the net.
Sarah, who lives in Minnesota, is one of two delegates chosen from the Midwestern United States. At 14, she is one of the youngest. The other delegates are from New England, the Mid-Atlantic, South, Midwest, Northwest and Southwest regions of the United States. They were selected by National Center for Missing & Exploited Children representatives of the teen website NetSmartz, ICE, and the Orlean Council, a group of private philanthropists who sponsoring the delegation.
Delegates were chosen based on applications and an interview for their knowledge of the Internet and its technology and their willingness to share what they know with others. They will be expected to help spread Internet safety messages in their communities upon returning from IYAC.
On their way to London, delegates will spend three days in Washington D.C. getting oriented to their task before going to London. ICE, which is the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, and the non-profit National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which manages the website Netsmartz, are long-time partners in protecting children on the Internet and the U.S. coordinators of the delegation. The conference will be hosted by the United Kingdom’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre in conjunction with the Virtual Global Task Force.
ICE is leading the fight in the United States and internationally, to stop the victimization of children on the Internet. ICE wants to ensure that young people in the United States and around the world are aware of how to safely use the Internet and know how to spot and report predator behavior. ICE’s Operation Predator is credited with the arrest of more than 11,000 predators since it was instituted in 2003.