EARLIER this year, a WhatsApp scandal at a school in Bulawayo forced many parents to confront a world they rarely see.
According to reports carried in the local media, learners had created a private WhatsApp channel where classmates were mocked, named and discussed. Polls were reportedly posted about who was popular, attractive or involved with whom.
To some of the young people taking part, it may have looked like banter. To those being talked about, it was public humiliation carried in the pocket, from the school grounds into the home.
The troubling part was not only what happened in that group. It was how long it remained beyond the sight of parents and teachers.
By the time adults became involved, the online behaviour had already spilled into school discipline, family anxiety and questions about who was responsible.
That is a Zimbabwean child-protection story of our time. The danger is no longer waiting only at the school gate, the shopping centre or the footpath home. It can enter a child’s bedroom through a phone bought by a loving parent for homework, family communication and, quite often, simple convenience.
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It is against this background that Cabinet approved the Zimbabwe National Child Online Protection Policy for 2026-30 in June. The policy provides a national framework for dealing with online sexual exploitation and abuse, cyberbullying, grooming, harmful content, sextortion and violations of children’s privacy.
It is built around nine strategic areas and calls for co-operation among government, schools, communities, academia and the private sector. That is an important step.
For years, concern about children online has been scattered across different laws, institutions and occasional awareness campaigns. A dedicated national policy gives Zimbabwe a common direction.
But we should resist the temptation to celebrate too early.
Zimbabwe has produced many sound policies. The difficulty often begins after the launch, when the speeches are over, the banners have been folded and officials return to their offices. The real question is what the policy will mean in the life of an ordinary child in Mbare, Chiredzi, Mutorashanga, Tsholotsho, Epworth or Tongogara Refugee Settlement.
If a Form Two learner is being humiliated in a class WhatsApp group tonight, will that child know where to go tomorrow? If someone using a fake profile demands personal information from a girl, will she feel safe enough to tell her mother? If a boy is threatened online, will he report it or will he keep quiet because he fears being laughed at?
And when a teacher, police officer or social worker receives such a report, will that person know what to do?
That is where policy becomes protection or remains a document. Adults sometimes make the mistake of treating online harm as less serious than harm in the physical world. We tell children to switch off the phone, leave the group or ignore the comments. Yet the humiliation is real. The fear is real.
A cruel message posted at night can follow a child into the classroom the next morning. A private image or conversation, once circulated, cannot simply be collected and put back into the phone.
The answer, therefore, cannot simply be to take away every phone. Confiscating a device may stop immediate access, but it can also teach a child that reporting trouble leads to punishment.
The next time something happens, the child may choose silence. Blanket bans also ignore the benefits of digital access.
Children use phones to learn, communicate with relatives, seek information, express themselves and take part in society. A child-rights approach does not ask us to choose between access and safety. It asks us to make both possible.
Section 81 of the Constitution is clear that children must be protected from sexual exploitation, maltreatment, neglect and every form of abuse. It also says their best interests are paramount in every matter concerning them.
Those protections do not disappear because the abuse happens on a messaging platform rather than in a physical place.
The same principle runs through the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.
Children are rights-holders whose views must be taken seriously. Protection, privacy, access to information and participation belong together.
This matters for implementation. Children must be involved in designing the systems intended to protect them. Children know which platforms are popular, how fake accounts are made believable and why some reporting channels feel unsafe.
Meaningful participation is not bringing a few learners to a launch for photographs. Children should help to shape awareness messages, reporting channels and school programmes and later determine if they work.
Parents need support as well. They buy smartphones for schoolwork, family communication and convenience, yet the digital world changes quickly. A parent may understand Facebook but know little about disappearing messages, location sharing or fake profiles.
That knowledge gap should not be a reason to blame parents. It should become a reason to equip them. Digital-parenting education should reach schools, churches, clinics and local radio. In plain language, it should explain how to begin calm conversations, preserve evidence and seek help.
Above all, the first response to a disclosure matters. A child who says, “Someone is troubling me on my phone,” should not first hear, “Why were you talking to strangers?” or “Give me that phone.” The first words should communicate safety: “Thank you for telling me. Let us deal with this together.”
Schools have an equally important role. One stern talk at assembly each year will not do. Online safety should form part of guidance and counselling, life-skills lessons and teacher training.
Learners need practical, age-appropriate conversations about consent, privacy, manipulation, digital footprints and the harm caused by forwarding humiliating material.
Teachers need a clear procedure when a learner reports an incident: who records it, contacts the guardian, and decides when Childline, the police or social development should become involved? Without guidance, even a caring teacher can cause further harm by making a child repeat the story or failing to protect confidentiality.
Police officers, prosecutors, magistrates and social workers need specialised training too. Messages disappear, accounts use false names and content crosses platforms and borders.
Families should not be pushed from office to office while institutions argue about who should act.
Zimbabwe already has legal foundations in the Constitution, the Children’s Act and the Cyber and Data Protection Act. What the new policy must now provide is a clear bridge between those laws and the child seeking help. That bridge should include a reporting route known across the country.
Childline Zimbabwe already operates the toll-free 116 helpline, but children and caregivers need to know not only where to call, but what happens after the call. Who follows up? How quickly? What protection is available if the child fears retaliation? Who provides counselling? A reporting mechanism is only as good as the response waiting behind it.
Justice must also mean more than arresting an offender or closing an account. A child may need counselling, support to return to school and reassurance that the incident does not define them. The dignity and recovery of the child must remain central throughout the process.
Technology companies and mobile network operators also carry responsibility. Reporting tools should be easy to find, privacy protective by default and harmful content dealt with promptly. Young users should be connected to credible help.
The policy will fail if it imagines only an urban child with a personal smartphone and digitally confident parents. Some children share phones or live far from services.
Children with disabilities may find reporting platforms inaccessible, while those in refugee and low-income communities may already face weak protection offline.
Girls may experience sexualised harassment and coercion, while boys may keep quiet because they fear being called weak.
A national response must recognise these differences. A campaign available only in English and only in well-resourced urban schools is not a national campaign.
Government must move quickly from policy to a funded implementation plan. Responsibilities should be clear. Deadlines and measurable targets should be public.
Teachers and frontline workers need training and simple referral procedures. Reporting channels should be tested with children and offered in local languages and accessible formats.
Parliament and the public should be able to trace the amount of money allocated and the results achieved.
We should measure progress by more than the number of workshops conducted. We need to know whether children understand the risks, whether they are reporting harm, whether reports receive timely responses and whether affected children obtain support.
We also need honest answers when a school hides an incident, an agency fails to act or a case disappears between institutions. The new policy is a welcome beginning.
It could become an important part of Zimbabwe’s child-protection system. But it will achieve little if thin budgets, scattered responsibilities and ceremonial implementation weaken it.
The lesson from the school in Bulawayo and many other cases that never reach the newspapers is simple: children are already living online. Adults and institutions cannot remain several steps behind.
The true measure of this policy will be the next child who receives a frightening message, is mocked in a class group or feels trapped by someone behind a fake account. That child should know where to turn. The child should expect to be believed, not blamed. And behind the adult who listens, there should be a system ready to act.