Dynamic Coalition on Children's Rights in the Digital Environment

Introduction

More and more children and young people globally are becoming digital citizens, accessing the internet to learn, communicate and play. While the internet can be a wonderfully positive tool for them, it also exposes them to risks, and therefore need to be addressed at global, regional and national levels to ensure all children can benefit safely from the opportunities that internet and associated technologies can bring .

Whether the aim is to protect children from potentially harmful content, conduct or contact or to disrupt the production and distribution of child sexual abuse images and videos as well as other forms of sexual abuse and exploitation through the misuse of technologies, these challenges transcend borders and require the involvement of all relevant stakeholders across sectors to address them adequately.

Given the number of internet users who are below the age of majority world wide, the members of the Dynamic Coalition on Children's Rights in the Digital Environment (formerly Dynamic Coalition on Child Online Safety), believe in the importance of advocating for and positioning the above-mentioned issues within the agenda of the internet Governance Forum by providing an open platform for discussion ensuring dialogue among representatives from children's organizations, government, industry, academia and other civil society groups, including those made up of young people themselves. This is reflected by the wide variety of its members and through concrete outcomes which were inputted by a large number of the DC members such as the UNICEF -ITU Industry guidelines for COP.

Action Plan

Aim of the DC

Organizations working with and for children and youths, government and industry representatives have joined together to establish a dialogue and address fundamental and practical issues impacting on child safety in the online environment.

Key objectives
  • To ensure a safer and more secure online environment for children and youth
  • To establish on-going exchange of experiences between all stakeholders
  • To encourage procedures for the improvement of legal regulations as well as self-regulation instruments towards child safety online
  • To strengthen efforts on all levels to fight child sexual abuse images of all kind
  • To strengthen efforts for the empowerment of children and youth themselves
  • To discuss how to ensure that all tools such as web-based reporting mechanisms or age verification solutions restricting access for younger users to certain types of content and services provided to children such as awareness raising campaigns or educational content through digital platforms are employed reasonably
  • To ensure that the needs of children as users are respected in the development and provision of new services and applications online
  • To create a platform for child rights agencies and freedom of expression advocates to dialogue on issues of mutual concern.
Action items for FY16, FY17 and FY18
  • Coordinate NGO’s and INGO activities on COP within WSIS +10 follow up and within IGF
  • Facilitate the exchange of information and of best practices between countries and regions
  • Facilitate the circulation of all available resources (data base, repository of legislations, codes of self-conducts, etc) that could be useful for the work of all interested child online protection actors
  • Adopt position papers/policy statements on relevant issues related to child online rights and safety
  • Strive for an alignment of understanding across national and cultural borders what is appropriate and inappropriate content, contact and conduct for children and youth on the internet
  • Promote open discussions/debates around aspects related to child online rights and safety during the IGF week as well as during inter-sessional periods
  • Ensure that the voice of child rights and safety advocates is included in all debates on Internet Governance, because children should never be considered a less relevant group of users
  • Advocate for positioning issues around the rights of the children in a digital era on the Internet Governance agendas
  • Update constantly the guidelines of ITU and their versions (on paper and on-line)
  • Improve the circulation of those guidelines and promote their adoption by the largest number of shareholders.

Mailing List

Mailing list address: [email protected]

Subscribe to the mailing list: https://intgovforum.org/mailman/listinfo/dc-cos_intgovforum.org

Stakeholders

Documents/Reports

Contact

Focal point:

Amy Crocker | Programme Advisor – Online Child Sexual Exploitation, ECPAT International | amyc[at]ecpat[dot]org