Kuwait City, May 8: The Kuwait Ministry of Health (MoH) in partnership with the country’s leading digital service provider, Zain, announced the kick-off of a nationwide awareness campaign to promote the Child Protection Helpline 147.

The dedicated hotline, which was first provided by Zain to MoH’s Child Protection Office in 2016, establishes a direct and confidential point-of-contact to report all forms of child abuse, neglect, or harm in Kuwait.

The initiative was announced during a ceremony held at Zain’s headquarters in Shuwaikh, where H.E. Minister of Health Dr. Ahmad Abdulwahab Al Awadhi; Zain Vice-Chairman and Group CEO, Bader Al-Kharafi; Zain Kuwait CEO, Nawaf Algharabally; and Child Protection Office Director, Dr. Mona Al Khawari were present, along with the Ministry’s top officials and Zain’s executive team.

H.E. Minister of Health Dr. Ahmad Abdulwahab Al Awadhi commented: “Acting against child abuse and neglect is a top priority for the Ministry of Health via the Child Protection High Committee, which laid the foundations, plans, and necessary measures to protect every child from harm. The committee operates according to scientific plans and strategies and has taken impactful steps to promote a culture that protects children and monitors any neglect or abuse cases. It is also tasked with studying abuse causes and formulating suitable solutions to prevent them in partnership with other related stakeholders.”

Dr. Al Awadhi continued: “In continuation of the Ministry’s efforts in this regard, a special team was formed to protect children across all of Kuwait’s Governorates. The multi-disciplinary team consists of doctors, nurses, mental health professionals, and social workers. MoH also formed the Child Protection Office under the Ministry’s legal office, and it is responsible for managing the necessary teams, decision making, and protocols.”

The Minister noted: “MoH’s Child Protection Office is an example of the collaboration between ministries, government and non-government agencies, and civil society organizations. The Office develops and operates strategies and national projects that are consistent with global plans, in line with the decision of the General Assembly of the World Health Organization to guide healthcare systems to combat abuse against children, girls, and women. MoH played a bigger role through a multisectoral national strategy that includes prevention, awareness, offering services to victims, and more.”

Dr. Al Awadhi also shed light on the fruitful collaboration between the Ministry of Health and Zain, which resulted in the establishment of the 147 helpline since 2016. The hotline receives abuse reports and provides mental counseling to children and their parents. He also noted that the helpline is recognized by Child Helpline International (CHI), and the campaign launch coincided with the International Day for Child Helplines.

In addition, the Minister applauded the legislative achievement in Kuwait, with the issuing of the Children Rights Act 21 for the year 2015, which affirms children’s rights and the State’s responsibility to take all the necessary measures to ensure children receive the highest level of healthcare services through preventative and curative services. Furthermore, the law contains other key branches like social care, educational care, and criminal protection, reflecting the State of Kuwait’s commitment to precent comprehensive care for children and their rights.

Bader Al-Kharafi said: “We take pride in the extended partnership between Zain and the Ministry of Health, which has succeeded in introducing a plethora of impactful programs and initiatives to serve everyone in our community over the years.”

“This nationwide campaign reflects a wider, more comprehensive effort to heighten awareness of children’s rights and bring the community’s attention to the risks they face. Our initiative focuses on shedding light on the significant role of the 147 helpline that Zain provided and promoting the community’s collective role in safeguarding every child in Kuwait.”

Al-Kharafi continued: “At Zain, we strive to play an active role in shouldering the nation’s social development plans because we strongly believe in the invaluable role the private sector plays in supporting the public sector to bring about positive change within the community.”

“The helpline provides a confidential and direct point-of-contact that allows anyone to report child abuse cases, and it is supervised by an expert team of social counselors. Our campaign targets the entire community, whether individuals, companies, ministries, or civil society organizations. We will harness the power of Zain’s digital reach through our social channels to spread the message and promote the campaign’s mission even further.”

Zain first provided the Child Protection Helpline 147 to the MOH’s Child Protection Office in 2016, and it was recently officially transferred to the Ministry. The hotline is recognized by Child Helpline International (CHI) and is available 24/7 to receive reports of all forms of child abuse, neglect, or harm. All reports are treated in utmost confidentiality, and the person who reports the alleged incident is protected under the law.

Reports through the 147 helpline are received by an expert team of counsellors and social workers from the Child Protection Office, who are trained to handle all kinds of abuse reports. The team determines the severity of every case and notifies the related authorities immediately, while also providing counseling, mental support, and social guidance to callers or victims, if necessary.

The nationwide awareness campaign targets the entire Kuwait community, including individuals and organizations, including MOH’s medical institutions, encouraging medical staff, doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to report any abuse they may become aware of.

Zain has a sound history of Child Protection initiatives

Through its membership to the GSMA, Zain partnered with Child Helpline International (CHI) to represent this global network in markets where it has no presence. Ultimately, Zain’s partnership with CHI succeeded in providing free access to helplines in several markets across MENA.

In the Global Child Forum’s report entitled, The State of Children’s Rights and Business 2023, Zain scored higher than the sector average and doubled the ranking of many regional corporates in key children’s rights categories. Described as a ‘Leader’ in the benchmarking rankings, Zain scored 8.4/10 overall against an ICT sector average of 5.8/10 and a regional average of just 3.4/10. The average of all global companies benchmarked stood at 4.9/10.

As a ‘Leader’, Zain was described in the report as a company that “has developed and implemented several policies and practices that address your organization’s impact on children’s rights across several important areas. Your company has taken concrete steps to move beyond policies and have embedded children’s rights into company practice, following-up through monitoring, transparent reporting, and programs to create action for children’s rights.”

Through Zain’s community-oriented and child well-being initiatives, the company looks to continue to improve and safeguard the livelihoods of the communities it serves and beyond. This notable benchmarking recognition helps assess Zain’s progress to-date in children’s rights and safety and inspires the company to do even better in the future.

Child Online Safety is of great importance for Zain given that over 30% of all internet users globally are estimated to be children and with the expansion of broadband access, this number is only set to rise over time. Zain is fully committed to addressing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16.2 calling on ending all forms of violence against children by 2030.

Zain scored perfect marks in several categories in the reports’ benchmarking exercise, including Standards & Guidelines; Board accountability; Materiality assessment; Supplier assessment; Grievance mechanisms; Collaboration; Product safety; Policies & commitments; and Resource use and damage to the environment, cementing its position as a leading proponent of corporate governance, sustainability, children’s rights, and sound business practices.

With the aim to further raise awareness on children’s rights and online safety, Zain expanded its partnership with Child Helpline International (CHI) to support child helplines across its countries of operation. This partnership aims to enhance collaboration between child helplines, Zain, and key child protection stakeholders; explore new technologies and software to enhance the helplines; create awareness campaigns; and expand services to include instant messaging and social media.

Zain has been actively working on implementing child sexual abuse material blocking mechanisms across its operations. In recent years, the company assessed the regulations and existing blocking mechanisms in each market. As a result, the company established a goal for all its markets to have child sexual abuse material (CSAM)-blocking mechanisms in place.

In a previous initiative, Zain established a partnership with UNICEF, signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to work towards the advancement of the rights of children in the region. Zain and UNICEF collaborated based on their respective expertise on strengthening activities around child rights. The MoU covered aspects on online gaming, raising awareness on child online safety, and convening stakeholders on online protection.

Through its partnership with UNICEF, Zain collaborated to create a Child Online Safety Booklet for school students and children. The goal of the booklet is to educate children on the risks they may be exposed to while being connected online or while gaming. In addition, the booklet offers tips and recommendations on what to do and not to do while online. This booklet was developed for Zain esports to disseminate to any partnership where children are players.

In another previous initiative, Zain launched the second phase of its ‘Internet Monsters’ campaign, showcasing the company’s commitment to raising further awareness on the risks children face online with lessons being taught through the adaptation of popular fairy tales. Internet Monsters showcases alternate plotlines to well-loved children’s stories, taking into consideration how online risks such as cyberbullying; self-generated child abuse content and materials; social media addiction; or widespread online scams and threats could come to the fore if technology was introduced into the telling of the fairy tales.

The ‘Internet Monsters’ campaign by Zain also included the commissioning of a dedicated illustration that drew attention to the fact that children can report online risks and abuse by calling their national child helplines. The campaign also included the development of two animated videos narrating different safety tips, to be shared with children, on how to protect themselves online. The videos were directed in a light and playful manner to appeal to children.

The MOH and Zain encourage the community to report any incidents to 147 and assures all of confidentiality and protection under the law.