Mutati said Zambia was obliged to adopt strategies that would protect cyberspace users including children and ensure that safe access to online resources is promoted.
Communication experts have warned that Zambia lacks the skills, equipment and organization to fight cybercrime.
Mutati said, however, that the country has set a framework for implementing security in the information age and that the new draft electronic communications and transaction bill proposes to criminalize cyber-security activities that were not covered before.
"My government has taken measures to protect cyberspace users including children in line with the endorsement of a cyber-security agenda," Mutati said.
Child and human trafficking, Mutati said, is thriving partly because of access and attraction arising from access to harmful information resources over the Internet.
As children and teenagers venture into cyberspace, accessing video libraries, chat rooms and social networks, they are exposed to certain contents that would harm them. This has forced the Zambian government to formulate new laws, Mutati said.
Zambia in 2006 launched the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) policy, which concentrates on using ICT to popularize telemedicine and implement cyberspace security. Zambia also enacted an Internet crime law, which includes provisions that could see convicted hackers facing sentences of up to 25 years in jail. The law is Zambia's first to deal with cyberspace crime, and so far no one has been convicted under the law.
However, Mutati said the Zambian government's new draft electronic communications and transaction bill proposes to criminalize cyber-security-related activities not covered in the ICT policy and computer misuse law.
The Communications Authority of Zambia, the country's telecom sector regulator, has warned that despite several laws being formulated, the country lacks the skills to fight cybercrime. Instead, the CAZ has threatened to punish ISPs that continually fail to provide security measures for their Internet services.
CAZ acting CEO Richard Mwanza threatened that CAZ will review all license conditions for ISPs to ensure that they are effectively prepared to protect their clients from cybercrime.
In December last year, hackers replaced the Zamnet communications Web site with insults after gaining root access to the company's servers.