posted to, leaving the victim with limited options for remedy. 186 Major social media
platforms have taken steps to address revenge porn. In March 2015 Twitter, Reddit, and
Facebook updated their community standards to prohibit the posting of revenge porn. 187
While these moderation mechanisms exist, users in Myanmar may be unaware of how to
access them.
Child Safety Online
Children can be particularly vulnerable to digital dangers when using ICTs. This can
include cyber-bullying or harassment online, accessing inappropriate content, or sexual
exploitation. Children that are targeted online can experience various degrees of trauma
that can affect their performance in school, social relationships, and mental health.
Limited information is available regarding the risk of child sexual abuse images in
Myanmar, but high levels of poverty combined with improved Internet access poses new
risks. There is little evidence that this has been a priority for child protection agencies or
NGOs in Myanmar to date, given low Internet penetration levels. This is an area where
awareness raising, appropriate standards and stronger penalties will be required. Under
Section 66 of Myanmar’s Child Law, the production or resale of child sexual abuse images
can result in maximum fine of 10,000 MMK (approximately US$8) and a two-year prison
sentence. 188
Education
ICTs interact with the education sector in at least three ways:
ICT Education focused on students learning how to program or use software
applications and/or training future ICT technicians/experts. See below for the status of
ICT Education in Myanmar
ICT in education focused on teachers incorporating ICT into teaching in the
classroom, e.g., multimedia classrooms, Powerpoint to support lectures, use of
computers for testing or tracking student records, etc). The potential benefits of
expanding ICT in primary and secondary education in Myanmar must be carefully
assessed against international evidence as well as the high capital and recurrent costs
this would impose and the resources this would draw away from other higher impact
investments in the education sector. 189
186
An increasing number of governments around the world are adopting legislation that criminalises revenge
porn. To accelerate these efforts, the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI) has organised a campaign called
End Revenge Porn and published a guide for legislators to assist with the development of legislation that
criminalises non-consensual pornography.
187 For example, Twitter’s community standards now prohibits the sharing of private intimate photos or video.
See Twitter, “The Twitter Rules” (last accessed August 2015). See also Facebook, “”Community Standards”,
“Sexual Violence and Exploitation” section, (last accessed August 2015).
188 Section 4, section 84 (a) of the Myanmar Child Law.
189 See for example, World Bank, “Worst practice in ICT use in education” (2010). As part of Myanmar’s
Comprehensive Education Sector Review (CESR), a survey of secondary schools nationwide (supported by
ADB and Australia) confirms that “hardware-driven” approaches would be hugely costly: e.g., roughly 2/3 of
responding rural basic education middle schools had no electricity and no computers, and virtually none had
CHAPTER 3: SECTOR-LEVEL IMPACTS
109
3