New York, Monday, Dec. 15th 2025; tomorrow the United Nation‘s General Assembly will convene to deliberate on the World Summit of Information Society Review and the prolongation of the mandate for the Internet Governance Forum. Today, several preliminary meetings are held to prepare for the decisions to be taken by the UNGA, where I will advocate for the best interests of the child to be a primary consideration in accordance with Article 3 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
When in 2003 and 2005 the World Summit of Information Society took place in Geneva and Tunis, I was part of a group of civil society organisations meeting at the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation’s premises in Berlin to work enthusiastically on a Charter on Human Rights in the Information Society as an input to the WSIS process. Many things have changed over the last 20 years: the number of Internet users world wide has grown to over 6 billion, technology and devices to access the Internet have become ubiquitous and mobile, and debates on opportunities and challenges are circling around AI today. Also, the role civil society organisations are playing in the Internet Governance ecosystem has become more important over the time and found more acceptance. But, despite successful collaboration, the digital divide is still not closed and two billion people are still not connected. Although children and young people under the age of 18 count for one third of Internet users worldwide coming to nearly the half in the Global South, their rights to access to information and freedom of speech are neglected when governments decide to forbid them having access to social media. What we need is a balanced approach to children’s rights to protection, provision and participation. We must oblige platform providers to take their responsibility, running child rights impact assessments on their services resulting in age-appropriate functionalities and settings according to the European Commission’s Guidelines on the Digital Services Act, Art. 28. In addition, we need to make sure children, parents and educators get the digital literacy training to navigate the digital environment safely and benefit from its provision. It’s time to deliver and the United Nations General Assembly is in the position to pave the way for continued cooperation across the globe within the WSIS and IGF community.