Digital safety must not slip through the cracks at the first Global Ministerial Conference to End Violence Against Children
30th September 2024By:
Emily Laurie Global Campaigns Director, Brave Movement
As we work towards ending violence against children, we must acknowledge that digital technology is an integral part of children’s everyday lives, with both unprecedented opportunities but also risks of harm.
Last week, Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex, gave a speech on online safety at the 2024 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). It was not just any speech - it was a powerful, personal and beautifully crafted speech, given by a true champion for mental health and online protection. The video quickly went viral, giving a well-timed and much-needed elevation of the issue of online safety within the broader global political community.
We stand at a pivotal moment in history, where rapid technological advancements are reshaping societies worldwide. While digital technologies offer immense potential for progress and innovation, they also present unprecedented challenges, particularly for children and young people.
It is imperative that as we collectively commit to the wellbeing of the next generation, we fully recognize the profound impact of the digital world on their lives.
A pivotal opportunity to protect children online
As we work towards ending violence against children, we must acknowledge that digital technology is an integral part of children’s everyday lives, with both unprecedented opportunities but also risks of harm. It is therefore essential to integrate a digital lens into the international efforts to protect children from violence.
As we move closer to the first Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children, governments will decide in the coming weeks what they will prioritize and commit to at the conference.
However, the current framing of the Ministerial pledging platform, the outcome document, and the expected related structure of the conference agenda do not provide ample opportunity for governments to pledge to prevent online safety. The pledging platform allows governments to pledge around online safety from a response service perspective, but the scale and intense escalation of abuse online needs to be stopped, not responded to.
It is interesting to note that the speech by The Duke of Sussex was in the ‘what's working’ section of the CGI agenda. This shows that violence and abuse online and the resulting mental and physical health impacts from this abuse in the physical world can be prevented. There are solutions that work to end online child sexual abuse.
Our call to action for governments on digital safety
At Together for Girls and the Brave Movement, we have worked with our partners Safe Online and WeProtect Global Alliance to provide governments and tech companies with evidence-informed examples of what can be done (and committed to at the conference) to prevent abuse from happening online.
Our primary policy ask for governments as set out in our survivor-informed call to action is to: “Enact and implement globally-aligned legislation and support international standards that prioritize children’s safety and wellbeing, are future-proof and tech-neutral. Laws should be designed to anticipate and counteract emerging dangers to child safety online and must mandate online service providers to implement ‘safety by design’ principles, as well as to report and remove all child sexual abuse material on their platforms, tools, or services.”
Currently, any government would struggle to be able to use the pledging platform to make such a pledge or commitment.
If online safety is not elevated on the Ministerial agenda and its policy processes, this will result in the invisibility of the issue in any accountability platforms that will come out of the conference. This, in turn, will prevent us from being able to address this issue with the political attention and financial support that is so urgently needed to create a safer digital and physical, future for all children.
Young people, survivors, civil society, and governments are increasingly seeing and saying how this is now a public health crisis. If it is not given more prominence within the Ministerial structure we risk falling even more behind in addressing this escalating international health crisis.
One case of online child abuse is being reported every second*. We must and cannot fail to give this issue the prioritization it needs to ensure it is placed at the center of the global efforts to end violence against children now, and in the future.
*Data from the Childlight Global Index by the Childlight Global Child Safety Institute.