IGF 2022 Open Forum #57 Digital skills for protection and participation online

Being online, wellbeing online, rights online: Co-creating and deploying tools and resources on children's and human rights in the digital environment to ensure online safety for children and youth with a special focus on the girl child and young women. In an increasingly connected world, the need for a safe and enabling digital environment for children and youth has never been greater. According to ITU data, in 2021 young people (15-24 years of age) world-wide were 1.24 times more likely to connect to the Internet than the rest of the population. Worldwide, one in three internet users are children, and as the General Comment No. 25 by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recognized, the digital environment acts as nexus to providing diverse opportunities and choices. This adoption comes at an unprecedented and pivotal time due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has relocated worldwide educational, leisure, social, political, and professional activities to the online environment. Massive change at this scale has caused new challenges to preserve the full integrity of children’s and human rights online. Access and use of the Internet has opened many doors for children and young people to realize the full range of their rights, such as the right to participate, express themselves, access information, communicate, and learn, and to live free from violence. Creation of online protection resources led by young people, particularly in grassroots’ spaces, have also emerged, driven by peer-to-peer support to help promote online safety and safety through online participation. Basic functional and digital literacy skills are, however, a precondition, without which children and youth, and all citizens are unable to access, read, write, input and upload information, participate in polls or express themselves in a manner permitting them to digitally engage in their community. Meaningful connectivity can help build connections between regions of the world and a wide range of people; however, there are still many who do not have the ability to access online spaces or have the knowledge to safely navigate them, with children, and specifically young girls, and young women, being some of the most vulnerable amongst them. It is essential for children, youth, and adults to develop a scope of how children’s rights and human rights apply to online spaces, be empowered to actively co-create spaces and services to support each other, participate through online means in matters that concern their lives and wellbeing, and learn measures that can be taken to improve the online experiences of vulnerable groups. Capacity building efforts for children, youth, girls, and women in particular, but also educators, parents, carers, policymakers, and the ICT industry are fundamental in increasing awareness, skills, literacy, and resilience of internet-users in co-creating safer and more accessible environments for children and youth, including women and girls. The ITU Child Online Protection Initiative and the EQUALS global partnership in collaboration with key stakeholders in the field, have undertaken the development of digital literacy education activities for a range of demographics and stakeholders to encourage capacity building efforts in a variety of online contexts. However, one of the critical challenges to capacity building endeavors is that there are still gaps in the way that online spaces can be accessed and by whom, such as the global gender digital divide and income inequality divide. Acknowledging and addressing areas for improvement in internet accessibility is the first step to understanding how connectivity can be improved in a meaningful and sustainable manner. The development of capacity building projects targeted at under-represented groups can help ensure that every child and every young person has the opportunity to benefit safely and fully from meaningful connectivity.