Empowerment can protect children

• 12/15/2024
• Report

Final preparations were still underway yesterday at the King Abdulaziz International Conference Centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to ensure that the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2024 can take place effortlessly. Participants from the fields of politics, government, science, academia, business and civil society will gather in the idyllic setting until 19 December to discuss the most pressing issues related to the organisation and regulation of the digital environment.

The “Child protection and children's rights in the digital world” project of the Digital Opportunities Foundation will be taking part in the conference to contribute the German perspective in workshops and events related to children's rights, as well as to reflect on suggestions, examples and experiences from other parts of the world and transfer them back to Germany. The project is also part of theDynamic Coalitions' joint stand at the IGF promoting children's rights.

Even though the Internet Governance Forum will not officially open until tomorrow and the welcome from the United Nations and the Saudi Arabian hosts is still pending, a few events have already taken place today. For example, European Schoolnet organised an event called “First Aid Online: Making the Difference for Children”, inviting speakers from various European countries to report on current phenomena that threaten children's safety online. Niels Van Paemel, from Child Focus Belgium, focused on the risk of self-created intimate images being shared with third parties without consent (NCII, Non-consensual Intimate Image Abuse). He pointed out that there is nothing wrong with children sharing such images - as long as it is done by mutual consent. However, if one of the two parties breaks the trust and shares the material with other people, there are a number of conflicts with the rights and interests of the children. In particular, the experience of violence can have significant consequences for those affected. This is also due to the fact that there is little control over the extent to which these images are shared. Additional dangers are created by applications of artificial intelligence, which make it possible to create intimate images without the corresponding real images.

On behalf of the Polish Safer Internet Centre, Anna Rywczyńska pointed out that the way various stakeholders deal with the phenomenon of cyberbullying needs to be examined more closely. For example, 44 per cent of children in Poland are aware of such risks on the internet without being directly affected by them. Over a third of all those affected (38 per cent) do not seek help because they do not want to reveal that they are affected for various reasons and almost one in four parents (23 per cent) contribute to increasing the risks for their children by sharing images of their own children.In this context, it seems appropriate to invest more in the activation and empowerment of all stakeholders, in addition to existing approaches to the education and protection of children. Parents who are more sensitive and aware of how they handle their children's information online, and who witness such offences in the digital environment, can make a significant contribution to increasing the safety of all children. Last but not least, such measures can also help to ensure that more children turn to organisations that offer support and help, rather than being left alone with their concerns.