The Working Group of German Family Organisations (AGF) has discussed the European Commission's proposal for a regulation laying down rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse. As a result of the exchange, the family organisations express their concern about the threat of sexual violence in the digital environment and call for these threats to be taken seriously. The organisations consider it crucial to bring the actual core of the objectives back into the focus of the debate and to objectify the polarisation between data protection and child protection in the interests of children and their families.
In this context, they point out that the rights of the child are multifaceted. They include not only rights of protection, but also the rights to participation and privacy, among others. These rights must be taken into consideration and weighed up in the measures affecting children and their families. Furthermore, they emphasise the high level of responsibility for the protection of children and young people when using digital media and technologies on the part of policymakers and providers, without whose cooperation significant protection cannot be achieved.
The family associations recommend combining the European Commission's proposal for regulation with measures to increase skills in dealing with digital media, preventive services to avoid sexual violence and counselling for children and families. Children should be informed about the risks of sexual violence online and provided with information on precautionary measures to be observed in order to protect themselves from such attacks, as the European Commission intends to do as part of the Better Internet for Kids strategy. At the same time, they point out that it is not a solution to demand more and more digital skills from families and users and thus unilaterally transfer responsibility for protection against digital risks to families and users of the services.
The AGF is a member of the advisory board of the Federal Agency for the Protection of Children and Young People in the Media (BzKJ) and part of the European association of family associations COFACE Families Europe. The position paper on the European Commission's proposal to prevent and combat the sexual abuse of children on the internet can be read here.