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 19th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will take place this year from 15 to 19 December 2024 in a hybrid format in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Under the theme “Building our Multistakeholder Digital Future”, representatives from business, academia and civil society will meet with high-ranking government representatives from all over the world to address the opportunities and challenges of our evolving digital future.

This November 20, it's International Child Rights Day! On this day, we celebrate the adoption of two landmark documents by the United Nations General Assembly: the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (also known as the CRC) - both important milestones in the recognition of children's rights.

Since 2015, 18 November has marked the European Day for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse. It was established by the Council of Europe to raise awareness of sexual exploitation and sexual violence against children and to promote effective prevention and protection measures. The day is an opportunity to shed some light on the subject and to break the silence that surrounds it. This year, the European Day for the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse is being organised under the theme “Emerging Technologies: threats and opportunities for the protection of children from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse”.

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.

Germany has done significant work towards prevention and protection of children from sale, sexual abuse and exploitation, a UN expert said today, urging the country to adopt a national child protection strategy with an oversight mechanism to ensure consistency and harmony of approaches and implementation across the country.

Mama Fatima Singhateh, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, has been visiting Germany since Monday to learn about the current situation and existing developments in relation to preventing, combating and raising awareness of sexualised abuse against children. On 17 October, the ‘Child protection and children's rights in the digital world’ project of the Digital Opportunities Foundation and other organisations were invited to discuss positive and negative developments regarding the digital dimensions of sexualised violence against children with her.

As part of the 15th Internet Governance Forum Germany, the project ‘Child protection and children's rights in the digital world’ held a workshop on the topic of children's rights in the metaverse on 11 September.

The organisation BraveMovement has launched a petition calling for far-reaching measures in the areas of regulation, funding and support, the participation of survivors in measures to be taken and action to raise awareness of the issue in the run-up to the first global ministerial conference to end sexual violence against children .

The European Commission is continuing to prepare the market environment for virtual worlds and artificial intelligence.