IGF 2020 - Day 8 - WS195 Protection or Participation? Child Rights in a New Normal

 

>> Do we have captioning working?  And ready to go?

 

>> MODERATOR:  Good morning, everybody.  Good afternoon and good evening.  Wherever you are in the world.  Welcome to our session profession or participation child rights in a new normal.  I'm Natasha Jackson representing the GSMA, the global mobile organization.  This session is provided by both the GSMA and UNICEF and we have UNICEF on the line as well.  And we are having a debate session today.  So hopefully we'll be able to get good interaction with all of you participating wherever you are in the world.

We have got an amazing panel of people who are going to talk to us today about the issue.  Really we're focused initially on COVID.  And the global COVID‑19 crisis which we know has brought into sharp focus many challenges related to children's rights in the global context and particularly around participation.  And profession.  And that's been pushing the considerations that many people, many child rights stakeholders and those who have been interested in child rights from very different perspectives have been pushing over the years.  Issues like digital inclusion, on line safety, youth participation and so on.

And whilst it has been in a very difficult time in many countries, in fact I'm sure in all countries around the world, I think there has been one positive coming out of COVID‑19 in some way.  And that is that the need to address the digital divide that children face the need to address is much more widely acknowledged and understood.  And I think that's one of the positives, as I said.  But there are also of course many, many concerns and many issues have come up.  And those concerns include, of course, Internet safety issues.  We know many parents and carers and others have had to climb a steep hill on this period.  That's now the opportunity for us to get this child rights agenda up on the policy agenda and we have to use this.  And we need to get ahead with policy makers of any sort of knee jerk approaches whether that's by policy makers or parents or carers that these sort of knee jerk approaches that can favor protection for children over participation or even vice versa and look for solutions which maximize the opportunity that children have while also combating the risks.  UNICEF released a report on COVID in July.  Josi will put that on the links in the chat so anyone who wants to see it can access it.  It identified the 10 key rights issues that they see thrown up by children's engagement with a digital world and those are the particularly pressing in the context of this new COVID normal.  in that document there are business and policy maker messages on each of the 10 points and also lots of other sources of information.  So please do go have a look at that if you haven't seen it together.  Our objective today is to have a ‑‑ we're going to bring together the collective experience we have in the panelists and insights they have and hope to bring in also you sort of the wider group, anyone participating to propose a debate on workable solutions to issues that have been highlighted during the pandemic.  The way we're going to structure it is that each of our four panelists are going to have the opportunity to outline the issues that they've been encountering relating to children and young people during COVID‑19 whether that's closing of schools or educational settings, the role of information or disinformation and keeping children safe and healthy as well as impact of social isolation.  Social distances.  And we will have two panelists speaking from the protection angle and two from the participation angle.

Participants, anyone watching remotely, you'll be given the opportunity to ask questions and debate any of the recommendations for messages they're giving.  Please can you use the chat function on the right for any comments any reactions to things that panelists are saying to share any research or studies or own experiences and use the Q&A panel for questions for the panelists. 

We'll be monitoring both of those at the same time.  My eyes might be darting around as we're doing that.  I apologize for that.  And we will post them back.  After the opening statements, we will open it up and we will ask panelists your questions, get into a bit of debate on that, and then we will close with some closing statements and also because of the IGF this year have asked for voluntary commitments.  We will be also be asking panelists if there are any voluntary commitments related to IGF2020 that they want to share with us.

So we will kick off on the protection side.  So our first panelist is Uri Sadeh, the coordinator.  Uri Sadeh trained as a lawyer, worked on various human rights topics in Israel including trafficking human beings, asylum seekers and Palestinian human rights and in 2007 after obtaining his master's degree in human rights from the London School of Economics.  He joined INTERPOL focusing contentious crimes against children.  Five or six years ago he went on sabbatical and returned to Israel, Florida, to take part in the creation of online crimes against children unit within the national police there before he led investigations into online child sexual exploitation.  So he has really hands‑on experience in investigating these crimes and bringing child sexual exploitation and criminals to justice.  In 2019, so last year, Uri returned to INTERPOL and now heads the crimes against children's unit. 

So Uri, welcome to the panel.  We're delighted to have you here.

I'll give you about five minutes to give some opening statements on your experience during COVID‑19 and messages that you have from INTERPOL.  Welcome.

>> URI SADEH: Thank you very much, Natasha.  And thank you for the opportunity to present during this and participate in the panel and present during this event.  Ten seconds I'll say INTERPOL is the international criminal police organization bringing together 194 police forces in different countries around the world seeking primarily to provide for international cooperation between them, help build capacity on different topics and provide operational support for those ‑‑ to those police forces globally.  Crimes against children unit within the organization is in touch with numerous specialized units around the world working on crimes against children predominantly online.  Crimes against children to build better capacity in the same manner, deliver trainings, create cooperation in this international crime and ensure victims and offenders are identified and either safeguarded or arrested.

What I'll focus on today is the COVID report that we've issued early September.  Trying to look at what the pandemic is doing to law enforcement's efforts and phenomenal in general of online child exploitation.

Now, see if we can have any lessons from what we saw over the first or the half a year of the pandemic.

The sources for our report which is available on the Web site of INTERPOL were predominantly law enforcement information.  Some private industry and partners, information whether they work on childhood expectation international NGOs provided input and obviously the open source.  And we look at it obviously the setting nor this interest and the peculiar situation is the fact that schools have been closed largely for extended periods during this time adults spend on line.  The home environment and restrictions on international travel.

So with the limited minutes that I have, I'll try to focus on a few of the findings which, again, if people are interested can be found in the report.  So, if we look at law enforcement itself, we saw law enforcement around the world reported reduction in the number of reports they got concerning child exploitation cases from the public.

So it was obviously the limitations have affected their ability of the public of children or perhaps of caregivers to report incidents.  There's also we noticed a reduction in the usage of our specialized toads for investigating this specific crime area by law enforcement, colleagues in our member countries.

We saw a change in the level of reporting that industry is providing on a regular basis.  So many industry platforms, Internet platforms report regularly to law enforcement incidents that are expected as being child sexual exploitation and there was reduction in the reports and sometimes a change in the manner and the depth if you want of the reports due to the work from home environment which gives less access to different systems.

Also the cases for law enforcement where we saw the ‑‑ in some cases some of the force was diverted to other policing tasks related to the COVID pandemic.  Therefore, having less access to specialized network providing access to international child exploitation based in INTERPOL which was hindering their investigations.

If we look in general about the phenomenas as we saw it, we saw a significant increase in exchange of child abuse materials, videos and images depicting children being sexually exploited.  It was done in peer‑to‑peer sharing file sharing networks.  We could see an increase in discussions on dedicated pedophile forums which exist in abundance, especially on the dark net where often it is our sharing experience and material and discussing the crimes they're committing.  We saw an increase in that.  There was more time and more activity spent there.  We saw the significant increase in viral content circulating.  So police forces reporting more and more cases of videos that go viral and actually revictimize the children that are depicted within this material and also exposes more people that are not necessarily seeking such exposure to child abuse material.

We saw pretty natural an increasing self‑generating materials.  So victims, minors producing child abuse material on behalf of ‑‑ or at the request of offenders that are contacting them online.  And these going ‑‑ being distributed.  We didn't see actually ‑‑ this can be revisited ‑‑ all of those findings I'm talking about are initial because data available was still limited.  We wrote this over summer which was worth looking at a few months or even a year down the road.  In the gaming industry where we know there is abuse as well children in online gaming are being groomed into abusive situations or extortion situations, we didn't see ‑‑ there were no reports of increased incidents.

We did see suggestions that there is more online payment for wild exploitation material and that's linked to streaming that's phenomena of offenders sitting in one country and paying someone else an adult elsewhere to abuse kids live on camera for them in exchange for payment.  We saw indications of increase on this phenomena.

And we saw an increase in natural increase in obstacles for victims to report where children are not in school and don't have this route of reporting or teacher or caregiver being able to detect abuse and therefore, reported ‑‑ expose it.  There is obviously less access to medical care and social services because of lockdown.

In a nutshell these are some of the findings in the report I encourage you to go and read the full report.

We have questions later on.  I hope I'm within the time limit.

>> MODERATOR: Great.  Thank you, Uri.  Quite sobering stuff there in the report.

Really all of the issues in there are really, really upsetting as well.  I have a question for you.  You mentioned this reduction in reporting of cases.  With schools being closed and children being confined much more, that's been the case.  But how do you think those sort of barriers and vulnerability they create for children can be mitigated?

>> URI SADEH: It seems crucial now that we have lessons of the first confinement and some results of the nature it had that hotlines for example must remain open.  Hotlines reporting ‑‑ hotlines that are served often for reporting incidents material and actual cases should remain open and accessible to the public.

There's other technological solutions that can be put in place even on law enforcement side.  Find online reporting mechanisms allowing children to put their complaints or initial complaints in online to reports can be a toll‑free texting service.  It can be integrated channels within the social platforms where children are, that sort of thing.

Gaming, again, messaging applications.  The online environment should be exploited to that end in order to ensure that we have continuous service.  And the same goes for social services and medical services related sexual abuse, those must be seen as essential services that must be ‑‑ must remain open and people should be able to access them.

>> MODERATOR: That is a great link to our next panelist.  Thank you, Uri. 

Our next panelist is he general director of the SOA organization in Palestine.  She's an experienced trainer in gender‑based violence.  Developed anti‑violence programs, published manual on eliminating violence particularly against children and women.  She's helped establish five helplines for women survivors of violence and child protection in Palestine and in the wider Middle East region.  She's also a consultant, published research.  And of course has been running a child protection help line which is part of an international network of child helplines called child help line international.

So welcome to the session.  We heard just now from Uri about the importance of hotlines staying available all the time.  And accessible to children.  Perhaps you could talk a little bit about your experience over the COVID period with the help line for children and women that you've been running in Palestine.

>> OHAILA SHOMAR:  Thank you.  Yes, I will share my experience.

>> Your video is not showing yet.

>> OHAILA SHOMAR:  I don't have the choice to open.  Okay.

 >> MODERATOR: There you go.  Nice to see your face.

>> OHAILA SHOMAR:  Okay.

As an organization we are running child protection helpline.  And with the support of our partners we continue to provide our services remotely during 24 hours by 7 for children during the lockdown.  As our services were not affected during lockdown and in particular the protection system doesn't work and doesn't function as usual during the emergency situation.

And there were increases in number of children that contacted the helpline services.  Mainly they reported physical violence, sexual exploitation, cyber harassment, attempted suicide.  And the high percentage of calls was from male and young men.  Increased 20%.  Many children didn't get basic needs as a result of economic situation for their families.  Some children didn't have enough food or they couldn't continue their study because they don't have the ability to attend the e‑learning.

And also the protection was very weak during this time.  I will relate this to the mainly poor countries that many families lost their job and they didn't have also enough space in their houses and the number of families is very big.  So it makes a lot of clashes or a lot of stress inside the house and the result of that children were suffering from different types of violence and especially we can ‑‑ as I explained before, it's for cases of incest, suicide, we started to hear, like, children report more about these cases and it talks the country and government a few months until they scatter to give services and I mean here the protection systems start to be active and we have like the first two months of the lockdown it was really difficult.  To prefer children to the protection system we have in Palestine.  We find there is a big need to have helpline and the helpline givers an opportunity for children to raise their voices and we can hear their voices and give them space that they can report and talk about the difficulties they face inside the family.  So the helpline was like a window or open the whole for children that they can call the helpline and get the psychosocial support to continue on their life and also when they have any problem inside the family they will find a place where they can get help.

And I can say from our experience that we published a lot of FAQ sheets during this time.  The FAQ sheets give us a real information about the ground and to what's going on the ground with children.  And because these FAQ sheets result from our database that we document the cases that we receive on this database can show us what the ‑‑ what the needs of the children are.  we can see the difference between each month between the needs of the children like from the beginning of the lockdown until today.  The graph is different each month but the FAQ sheets gives us rich information how to address our services and what to add.  And how also to prepare our staff for the response of the needs for the children during this time.  Yeah, so this is mainly what I like to share with you and I'm ready to answer any questions you have related to our experience.  Thank you.

>> MODERATOR: Thanks very much, Ohaila.  Again sobering message of the experiences you've noted for the first hand from the helplines.  You talk very much about how governments were slow to follow‑up.  If you took away the participation side of the equation and just focused on the protection, what would be your key recommendation or ask if you just focused on that?  

>> It's ‑‑ I mean, it's very important to have the communication with the government and with the protection system.  Because, as I mentioned, after two months we tried to advocate a lot for that.

And we succeed to function the protection system and we get,, for example, a training for the government and the mainly for minister of social development, how to continue their services through the online services.  How to be prepared for any emergency situation.  So planning is very important like to have a plan for emergency responses is very important.  This is what we tried to do with the government institution and with other referral systems in the country.

>> MODERATOR: Okay.  Interesting.  We have some questions coming through.  We will get to those questions.  Also, just for remote participants, if you have experience from your countries that match what Ohaila is saying or if you have even different experiences, please feel free to comment in the chat and we'll monitor those as well.  It will be interesting to see the experiences from other parts of the world as a commonalities and differences.  So thank you, Ohaila.  I think your overview has been really interesting and helpful and is ‑‑

I want to now turn to a student himself at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa.  He's studying politics and international relations there.  He's a student leader and also a mentor for students in his department and he's representative for the South Africa for the Commonwealth Student Association.  Bongani also volunteers for UNICEF South Africa and directed and produced a short film for UNICEF Africa and he's the limited youth reporter.  And he uses films and other methods to spread information and the stories and talk about from a youth perspective.  You can see his story on the GMSA on the youth site.  There's a video there I made at a workshop with Vodac at a photo storing workshop. 

Bongani, welcome to the panel today.  I think you are closer to school years than anyone else on our panel.  We're delighted to have a young voice on our panel as well.

And I think we'd really like to hear your experiences.  What have you been hearing from your community of young people, your network, how do they match what we heard.  Please share your information with us and your experiences and those of your colleagues or compatriots.  Thanks.  Are we getting Bongani.  He's having laptop issues.  That just shows that that is a key issue on connectivity that is not unfamiliar to many of us during COVID‑19.  So he's going to sort those out, and we'll switch to him later. 

We'll now move to Professor Amanda Third, codirector of the young and resilient research center at western university in Sydney.  She's an expert in child centered participatory research and child‑centered projects for children in the digital age in over 70 countries around the world.  She's worked with partners on corporate government not for profit sectors, children and young people themselves.  And she's part of the team led by the five rights Foundation that's drafting the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child general comment on children's rights in the digital environment.

So Amanda, sorry, she's also professional research fellow in institute for culture and society at Western Sydney University, faculty associate in the Center for Internet and Society at Harvard.  Wow.  Great credentials and most recent book is "Young People in Digital Society" which is published by Hargrave. 

So Amanda, you do this research directly with young ‑‑ with children and not just young people but with children.  Perhaps can share some of your experiences and the trends and threats that you saw during the COVID period compared to prepandemic.

>> AMANDA THIRD:  Thanks very much, Natasha, and UNICEF and GMSA for organizing this panel.  It's wonderful and terribly sobering to listen to the perspectives being shared so far and clearly there are lots of challenges ahead of us.

I want to begin by engaging with the title of this panel.  Protection or participation?

And I thought I would throw out a challenge to organizations that facilitate children's access to and use of technology around the world.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is still the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history, calls on states and other duty bearers to respect, protect and up hold children's provision, protection, and participation rights.

So from perspective of the convention then it's not a question of either protection or participation but in fact of provision, protection, and participation.

It's our task as stipulated by the convention, to realize all three in concert.

And this is a very complicated necessary and indeed urgent task in the world we've suddenly encountered.

Children are not particularly vulnerable to developing COVID‑19 and emerging evidence is suggesting that children around the world are not particularly concerned that either they or their loved once will contract the virus.  Nonetheless, children have been seriously affected by the crisis of the everyday that's been brought about by the pandemic.

They say they've feeling intense and our new emotions like anger, grief and anxiety. And I worry that they're not equipped to deal with those emotions.  They feel disconnected from peers and activities that support day‑to‑day well‑being.

And many are experiencing heightened tensions and even violence at home as families grapple with the very real effects of the pandemic on job losses and financial pressure.

So like many adults, children have a sense that the world will never be normal again.  It's quite likely that they're right.  In short, children are experiencing a crisis in the social worlds and this will potentially have long‑term effects on their lives.  My concern is that under these conditions because they're not seen as a group that's vulnerable to the virus, their needs, rights and aspirations have remained under the radar.  They are, if you like, the invisible victims of this pandemic.

Now more than ever we have to make a concerted effort to address children's needs.  We have to keep their concerns front and center as we take decisions to deal with this crisis.  Which also means that we need good ways to listen to what children need and want.

Throughout the pandemic technologies provided many children with a vital point of continuity and connection.  It's really helped to structure their day‑to‑day life and give life under the pandemic order and meaning.

Of course this is not true for all children as Natasha noted in her introduction.  We urgently need mechanisms for addressing the digital inclusion of those children who don't have regular and reliable access to technology and the Internet.

But for those with access, technology has been key to their well‑being through the pandemic and this is reflected in the sharp increases in their use of technology.

By virtual of being online, ever more children are more exposed to risks of harm as by fellow panelists already pointed out we've seen escalating rights of forms of violence that range from cyber bullying at the more pointy end of the child protection challenge alarming increases of child exploitation and these require urgent remedy.  But, at the same time, I want to suggest that we need to expand our thinking about protection beyond conventional online safety risks because children are experiencing a crisis in their social world that's compromising their well‑being.  And they need protection from these factors.

We need to keep children safe emotionally as well as physically in the broader lives beyond the online world.

While we have been quite good at providing children with child‑friendly information about how to protect their physical health from the virus, we've not yet learned how to leverage technology to protect children's rights to other vital rights of information and support to deal with the other dimensions of the pandemic.  Indeed, we're not to imagine all the ways that technology can be enhanced to shore up children's broad range of rights beyond those that play out in online spaces.

Technology, if we're smart about it, could be a much more powerful part of the solution.  But some solutions need to be driven by children's own insights and experiences about what they need.  And this is one example where we see that participation is not only critical but interconnected deeply with their protection.

Many of our responses to the pandemic to date have been driven by the sheer requirement to respond at speed.  We've seen a massive movement namely for example to get children's education online and on the surface it looks as though we've begun to recognize the possibilities of online education, making the kinds of changes that some educators have fought for decades overnight.

And yet, many children are reporting that their experience of education is less than adequate.

Although the evidence is yet to come in, I do think that in our rush to get education online we've not stopped to think about what good education in online settings needs to look like.

Despite the massive efforts of educators all around the world, we haven't had time to think about how we might need to rethink education for online delivery.

And as with many other domains of children's lives, we haven't stopped to involve children in the project of reenvisaging education for 21st Century online world.  Indeed, you might say that children's participation has been one of the big casualties of the pandemic.

If we're to take up the challenge of protecting children's rights seriously, we need to urgently prioritize children's right to participate in the decision making that impacts their lives.  We need to recognize that children have important insights.  That they're an enormous resource in helping us respond toe this new normal.  But to tap into this, we need to really rethink our structures and processes of governance.  We need ways of engaging children effectively in times of physical distancing.

And we need to make space for children to contribute to those processes of decision making not in one off kind of ways but as an ongoing and integral part of our processes always remembering that their protection and participation rights are intertwined.

Thanks, Natasha.

>> MODERATOR: Thanks, Amanda.  Really interesting.  I have a question for you actually.  So you know you talk about how we really need to we think but how do we actually engage with children meaningfully?  And you know I'm talking particularly, you know, as GSMA, our members are corporate.  So how do we engage with them?

And how do others engage with them meaningfully rather than lip service or in any other ways?

>> AMANDA THIRD: Thanks.  That's a great question and one that ‑‑ a question that many people have because children's participation rights are notoriously difficult to realize, much more difficult to realize than protection rights in many senses.  Yeah?

And I think there are lots of things to take away from experience to date.  Obviously things ‑‑ it's best to reach out to children in the spaces that they're already in.   You know, speak in child friendly language, et cetera, et cetera.  There are lots of good principles for engaging children effectively that we can turn to for support here.

But I think the major challenge is really to move beyond tokenistic participation as your question subjects.  And to me that really involves a radical rethink of the ways that we set up our decision‑making processes.  It really involves corporations thinking about well, okay.

so we make decisions about children's lives all the time.  How do we invite them into those processes in ways are meaningful to children?  And in an ongoing way, how do we expand the possibilities to interface with children?  I think there's wonderful examples of the ways that's been done.  For example, just a non‑technology one is that I'm part of an entity called the 216 site children's Parliament run by the Liverpool City Council in Western Sydney University.

And the council has set up a children's Parliament which sits alongside the adult Parliament and members of the adult Parliament attend and listen to the decision making that children undertake and then there's a series of advocates who advocate for adults to take those decisions up in the broader world if you like.

And I think these are the kinds of examples that we could turn to to really think about more meaningful forms of participation for children.  In all kinds of practices governments and civil society to private enterprise.

>> MODERATOR: Okay, great.  That's the perfect segue to move to Bongani who I believe has fixed his laptop issues.  So Bongani already gave his bio.  But actually talking about corporate talking to young people so Bongani we had invited this GSMA to come to world Congress earlier this year and talk to business leaders there so start getting that communication from young people to the corporate sector.  Unfortunately, of course, COVID put an end to that and we had to cancel the conference.

But Bongani, please give us your perspective of the pandemic in terms of the experience that you have had personally or experiences from those you're connected with.  And also perhaps afterwards maybe you can touch on how the sort of youth voice and listening to young people and engaging them more in all the issues and responses and the measures that can be taken to improve the situation in these times of pandemic and other challenges, thank you.

>> Bongani:  You're still on mute, Bongani.

>> Bongani:  Sorry about that.  Thank you for having me.  I'm not sure if I'm audible enough.

 >> MODERATOR: You just need to speak a little louder, and then I think you're fine.  We can see you.  Just a little low on volume.

>> Bongani:  Am I audible enough?

>> Yes.

>> Okay

Hello?  Oh, perfect.

Thank you for having me.  It's really important for us to identify or recognize that there's more dangers for kids being on the Internet as opposed to not being on the Internet.

And as we've seen, things such as child trafficking which has already been spoken about, cyber bullying which has also been spoken about, we've seen how drastically increasing those things have been during the pandemic.  But with these incidents also being highlighted, I think it's also important for us to also ensure that young people ‑‑ that regulation that's are put there in place for kids and young people to be able to actively engage on Internet and online platforms.

 >> MODERATOR: It looks like we've lost Bongani again.  Such a shame.  That's one of the key challenges we've come up against is actually what do we do about children and young people who don't have access to the Internet?  Now, we'll get into that with the panel ‑‑ Bongani, you're back.  Please if you can take yourself off mute and continue, that will be great.  And I was just saying that this is sort of lack of connectivity that a lot of people are experiencing is one of the key issues and I expect with children it's even more so whether it's because of technology or because their parents or others are trying to protect them from what they perceive as the dangers online.

>> Bongani:  Thank you.  Sorry about that.  But as I was saying, I think most of the work that I do at the moment with UNICEF when volunteering with them so it's going to schools around the country, facilitates workshops on capacity building.

And what the pandemic has basically done is that now because of lockdown everything we're unable to reach out to the kids and have the normal workshops we have with them.  And I think a very critical thing with these workshops is also being able to provide some of the kids because they come not having any form of food.

And so apart from this, what we kind of do is that we've taken the workshops to an online space.  So now we have workshops on using Zoom and engage with them kids remain to creating we need to engage or have young people and children in online platforms regardless of the danger that may be there.  As I stated earlier on we need to have regulations that ensure that kids are safe online.  Regulations that ensure that parents as well are involved on their kids online activity.

Another thing that I think the pandemic has also taught us is how unequal society is.  Inequality within our society.

So with the pandemic and lockdown happening, most of the kids who had, like, proper resources were able to continue with e‑learning, online learning.  While kids who come from disadvantaged backgrounds weren't able to engage online with the education and read.  With academics, this speaks to the need for us to ensuring that kids to go to schools in different communities have the same opportunities and resources as kids who are offered better advantage.  And apart from this, I think another thing to also take note of is Amanda spoke a bit on this ‑‑ the need for meaningful engagement of young people within decision‑making processes.  And why there is this critical need for children to also be involved?  This speaks to representation.  And it also speaks to people's experiences.  So, if there are decisions that are to be taken that speaks to the Internet and also speaks to young people's involved, we can't take any decisions without involving those people who will be affected by whatever decisions that will be taken.

And apart from this, I think another thing that we also need to take note of is the fact that when addressing issues.

 >> MODERATOR: We lost Bongani.  I suspect he'll be able to come back in a minute and join on the panel.  There were really interesting and quite clear messages from him there about regulation not everything stopped they were able to continue with the workshops.  We have quite a number of questions on the Q&A and also chat.  People have been sharing experiences.  I'm going to just open up for wider questions.  Hi, Bongani.  I see you're back now.  We're going to open up to the panel and give you an opportunity to talk.  Don't worry if you go off and on.  That's fine.  We'll keep bringing you in.  I'm going to bring Sosi from UNICEF who what particular questions do you want to start with to direct to the panelists.

>> Thank you for the introduction sessions.  False dichotomy has been picked up.  We wanted to get the debate flowing. And once we come to the end come to concrete ways off course protection and participation need to be both upheld online, so it's great to have that kind of picked up on instantly.  I see a question here that talks about right to privacy during COVID as consequence of children's increased participation online.  What does this ‑‑ the impact this has on collection of children's personal data and associated risks.  I just want to take the opportunity and, thank you, Natasha for giving me the chance to quickly jump in and share a brief that was published recently on the record impacts on child rights dimensions of that which I recommend to everyone.  But I wonder if any panelists have comments to pick up own this dimension of children's right to privacy during lockdown and increase the data collection and associated issues with that.

>> Sorry.  Would you mind repeating the question in brief.

>> JOSIANNE GALEA: Sure, we had a question in the Q&A that zoomed in on the right to privacy and the increased data collection on children during COVID specific issues there and potentially some solutions as well.

>> Yes.  Certainly, thanks, Josi.  So privacy is just a key challenge to by virtue of the fact they're spending more time online and also interfacing with variety of different platforms.  So privacy is really being challenged, I guess.  One thing I would draw attention to is that I've just recently done some work, in fact, working with 700 children around the world in 28 countries to try to understand their rights in the digital age.

And, when it comes to issues of privacy, for the first time in my history of working with children in this kind of way, children have really been sensitized to the issues around data protection and privacy.  When we talked to them previously, they tended to highlight interpersonal privacy as key challenge.  Watching what they're doing and feeling surveilled by the people around them.  But I think you know what they're attuned to ‑‑ and it's no doubt connected to the fact that around the world we have begun to have deeper conversations around data protection, as a consequence of some of the events that ‑‑ or breaches I guess you might say of data protection internationally.  And those conversations that adults have been having are indeed filtering down into children's consciousness and they are ‑‑ I think the only word for it is out wage.  People might collect data in ways that are not transparent to them.  They're worried about who collects data, what they collect it for and why.

And yeah, lots and lots of unanswered questions.

But I think you know what we need to really think carefully about ‑‑ and obviously there are things that can be done by governments to enforce data protection laws and you know the GDPR legislation is obviously critical.  There are things going on in a similar way beyond legislative protections and what's happening to our culture and the level of culture.  Our children have been taught that it's normal to be surveilled.  And it's ‑‑ you know, you're ‑‑ they are constantly under someone's watchful eye whether it be a parent or a private company who's willing to exploit them for economic section.  This is not just a breach of right to privacy but a breach of the right to freedom of thought.  We're teaching children not to think and do things that might come naturally to them because they live in this highly curated world.

So I think the challenges run very, very deep.  But I also think talking to children that there is a rising call.  I think they're going to be demeaning more from their platforms because they don't think that having a free social media service is a fair trade for privacy.  So watch.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Amanda.  That's really interesting.  And speaking from the more corporate side, we have seen a few companies already started to have youth panels I think, Talia, the operator that operates in Sweden and parts of the Nordics and other countries has a youth panel where they have young people coming and talking directly to the business and hopefully that's a trend that we'll start to see more of.  And certainly at GSMA we're encouraging all that and our commitment will be along that.

I want to stay with little bit about this idea on the data protection angle a little bit and also move over to Uri on this.  So Uri.  There were two angles here.  One, of course, is the debate that sometimes comes up which is the right to confidentiality and privacy that can also impede law enforcement investigations into criminals.  So the fact that you know they also have a right to privacy and a lot of the forms on which some of the ‑‑ you know pedophiles and others are interconnecting is encrypted and law enforcement don't have access to it.  So there's one sort of policy debate on that which I know the European mission and others are starting to think about in a vexing law enforcement.  Other of course is the fact that children are only really many children are finding the evidence to turn to the hotlines and helplines when they're away from perpetrators.  And what sort of evidence there is.  And that's a question I'll ask for you.  And what sort of evidence you may have for insights from other countries on that.  So sort of two questions there.  Take both or take one.

>> URI SADEH: I'll answer the second first.  It is an interesting aspect that we didn't see in the initial data we received.  There wasn't a lot of data from hotlines at the time.  So that might be something interesting to look at now or a little later.  It is logic that gives it suddenly find ourselves at the home environment especially if it's supportive home environment.  Away from abuse if the abuse is in school or kindergarten have the chance to disclose the chance to break away a little bit from the routine abuse they're facing so this is in fact a beneficial side of it.  Obviously there's the other side some victims must have been locked up with their abusers but there's a whole variety there.

Actually I should put in more details after I saw the comment in the chat here.

Another aspect we should be aware of we talked about privacy of children putting on those platforms and educated that's the way to learn or to communicate is the early exposures.  And it has been put online and earlier than they would have otherwise now because schooling and social communicating within their social group has moved online due to lockdown so you have a whole group of children who have been predictive arms.  Earlier than I think how do we ‑‑ can you then stop it at that we go back to normal school or how you have kids that are as lounge as first graders that are communicating online and therefore, exposed to abuse very early before they have protective mechanisms.  This coupled with the fact that while we are in remote studying if you're not online you don't exist.

The question about encryption, obviously, the encryption privacy while we of course want to protect protect, the police work to protect privacy while we talk about child sexual exploitation on line, you very often depend on the service providers providing some information about the abusers active offending against children online.  There is an increased usage of encryption on platforms which indeed blinds not only law enforcement but provides service providers themselves to the abuse that they know and we know and numbers are enormous is occurring on the platform and indeed stand on this if you're providing a platform where children are becoming ‑‑ are being abused this is not an assumption, this is a fact and you know it and we're talking about millions of reports coming out of platforms.  Going encryption going blind on it doesn't solve the problem.  Only serves the offenders.

And of course again, European legislation which is some aspects of protecting the privacy must take into consideration the need to protect vulnerable relations online there predominantly children and they leave some leeway for industry to work with law enforcement and try to detect chimed abuse and try to filter out child abuse material which is what this revictimizing the children that were once abused and NOI consumed again and again by offenders that gain reviewing.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you, yeah.  The question on balancing rights is always there.  Participation in any of these crimes and disadvantages.  And I just want to quickly before we start summing up to go back to issues there, Bongani if you're there, put the video on and then I know when you're on.

Because I think both Ohaila and Bongani it would be interesting to hear quickly one of the other issues that we've heard of, which is around misinformation.  So you know whether ‑‑ or disinformation even where children have come across information that is false or misleading or deliberately so.  Any of the issues that you've seen coming up in the helplines and that's ‑‑ Ohaila, if you could say something first and Bongani is this an issue disinformation and fake news type issues in relation to COVID.  What's been your experience there?  Thanks.

>> OHAILA SHOMAR:  I want to add I mean more about what my other colleagues mentioned.  We start to receive calls from children that they don't want to continue also the e‑learning because they face a lot of bullying during the class session.

Because they're using the e‑learning through different social media and like Zoom or other programs.  But the children use this program in a bad way.

So children should know how to use these channels as a safe channel for each child.  Not to use it as a channel to bullying or to attack other children.  Because children are afraid also to enter to the e‑learning and we received some calls in the helpline like this.

The other thing is children spending a lot of time on the Internet.  So we don't know which area they are chatting or getting through.

And some of the families they don't have the knowledge how to use the digital ‑‑ I mean digital knowledge.  And how to make it more safe for their children.

So I think it's very important to have raising awareness to parents and to the children and use digital channel and if we are not to any other children or also to protect our ‑‑ to protect their sons.  It's very important.

>> MODERATOR: The importance of education is always something that has come up.  I mean, children often also learn from each other as well.  And Bongani, do you have a particular message on that or experience on that in terms of learning to be safe online?  You're still on mute?

>> Bongani:  Sorry about that.  Technology is really getting the most of us today.

But yeah, I think there has been a lot of miss information going on during lock down and during this entire Pablo Allietti.  And this guys back to a point I made earlier on.  We just touched on it the issue of education, what I wanted to bring up is the need for partnerships with grass root level organizations.

I'll be engaging with meaningful sharing information with not just schools but parents as well.  How to use the Internet on the safe ways of using the Internet.  I think as much as children and kids are exposed to their Internet, not all parents have safe information or knowledge on how to use the Internet or how to not regulate or say but guide the kids on the safe use of Internet.  So I think that's one key thing that is really important.  That partnership between the private sector government as billion as grassroots level organizations.  And another point I wanted to make was on the kinds of information that organizations such as GSMA and UNICEF for instance put up on the Internet.  So with some of the work I'm doing which is taking short films ands raising awareness, I think that's another really important thing.  Ensuring that organizations also come in and share good information and basically two ways of to raise awareness for kids in the Internet on how to best use the Internet.

So yeah, I think those videos by different organizations kind of raise awareness are they important.

So best way of engaging with kids who are already on the Internet so yeah, I think that's my contribution to this question.

 >> MODERATOR: Thank you, Bongani.  That's really interesting because was we know from a lot of research, children are spending a lot of time watching videos and that's where they get a lot of the informal information and, Amanda, do you want to jump in and talk about what you see?

>> AMANDA THIRD: I just wanted to echo Bongani's points about the importance of parents.

it's very true that a lot of children have not had adequate supervision during the pandemic because even though parents are not in the home they're preoccupied with dealing with the fallout of the pandemic.  And I think there's real scope for us to think creatively here.  We also know a lot of parents don't have their own digital literacies are not strong enough to be able to support their children adequately and that's been borne on in the study on online safety in the Pacific where parents often didn't have an understanding of how the Internet worked that they could communicate to their children.

And so I think children do have a tendency to explore technology and use it intuitively.  And find its strengths and limitations, they're very keen on doing that.  So I do wonder if there's actually a really strong opportunity for us to think about how to use children as educators inside their own families.  To think about how we promote children to teach across generations some of those digital skills.  I think these are ‑‑ you know, I think if we come at these questions with a child participation, sometimes we can find little worm holes that open up perhaps different opportunities.

>> MODERATOR: That's really interesting.  And one of the things we've been thinking about at GSMA is also on inequality side, it's ‑‑ you know we've heard about how in countries where there is ‑‑ there are less people connected so where there may be coverage but there are a lot of barriers to people going online, one of those is often fear, fear of the parents who are worried about letting their children go online and also the fact that they don't have the literacy there.  And GSMA is a quick plug on development we have a program that deals with mobile Internet tools and trainings which is a mechanism by which mobile operators and some of the subSaharan Africa are doing this.  I have people out in the shops or communities who are helping adults learn more about how to use some of the tools.  And that's a first step.

If that were to be complimented with probably some kids who may not have access all the time to those technologies if they also can sort of double up that by teaching within the home, I think that might be a good step to start filling in digital inequalities.  Across different parts of the world.

>> MODERATOR: Natasha, I think there's another really interesting phenomena that is going on in many parts of the world and that is the device sharing phenomenon where families don't all have every member of the family doesn't have a mobile phone.  And I think you know device sharing comes with certain kinds of risks and pressures and children certainly speak about device sharing as a constraint on their time online and they can be exposed to content that's not appropriate because they're viewing it on the devices that's shared with all the family members.  But again, device sharing if we thought about it from a strength space, perspective, could really be handed to build literacies across generations.  And so I guess I'm quite interested to hear Ohaila and Bongani's views on device sharing and how that works and whether that might be a possibility.

>> OHAILA SHOMAR:  I can quote an initiative we're launching right now and that's ‑‑ I mean we try to launch an initiative to collect devices, like people can donate these devices.  We can get devices for children at schools because there is some schools they do research about the children that they have access to e‑learning and we find that many children male and female young girls don't have access to e‑learning because they have one device in the home.

And if there are more than one child so they will use the same device it will put them at high risk to use the same device as the parents use and children use and also keep ‑‑ I mean it will not give all the children the right to continue the e‑learning.  So we try to have this initiative to have one device for each child and we talk about families that are going to have large number.

This is what we try to do.

>> MODERATOR: Great initiative.  Bongani, device sharing.  How many ‑‑ how much is that been an issue people having only intermittent access to devices and how have you ‑‑ what have you come across on that aspect?  

>> Bongani:  Please repeat that.  Don't worry.  Actually we need to move to closing statements.  We've got about 10 minutes left of this.  We'll come back to you Bongani at ‑‑ in a minute.

But perhaps we can move first to Uri to see finally what are your recommendations and closing sort of messages for participants here listening and you know what is the most important thing you want us to help move forward on these issues?

>> URI SADEH: One of the main things to remember is while COVID is a good opportunity to highlight issues we've discussed here today, especially when we're talking about child sexual exploitation online, this exists before COVID and it will exist after COVID.

it is not bad.  This has a lot of if you want media and got closer to people and awareness has been raised as to the extent of the dangers online for children and need for services to be accessible for victims, parents to be aware, et cetera, this is a very prevalent phenomena that is happening regularly.  We're talking here about the need for access to devices, access to Internet and indeed from the points of view of investigators working morning to evening on trying to save children who are sexually exploited using those devices.  This very same Internet and catch offenders that are spending their time on those devices and network to try and harm kids.

It's not necessarily ‑‑ there's conflicting interests for the good and for the bad of children and youth in this connectivity.

I think the key things that we need to keep bringing up is the need to spend the funds or allocate the funds necessary to address child sexual exploitation on line to ensure that the law enforcement is equipped for it.  That it is accessible to children, that there are mechanisms in there for victims to raise their abuse to complain, to seek help.  There's clearer need for continuous cooperation between industry and plans if you want and law enforcement around this because there is no endorse ourselves arrest ourselves out of this phenomena this is huge and collaboration of all of those to raise awareness, equip children with the tools they need to try to prevent more of the abuse and enable them to complain and enable law enforcement to then try to identify and bring an end to the abuse.  Thank you.

>> Thanks, Uri.  I've just been reminded by the colleagues that we actually finish at 10 past.  So we have a little bit longer.  That's good.  My apologies for that.  But I wanted to then move back to Amanda actually.  Amanda, you heard Uri's call there for the technology, the capabilities for law enforcement, for children to be online.

If you were to be extreme in your ask and request what would be your wish list, your really extreme wish list?  And how do we take more realistic steps to get there?  Right?  What are the small things we can do next that will start us down the path.  Sometimes the first step is the most important.

>> AMANDA THIRD: Yes.  Natasha, I do hear Uri's call. And indeed, I would echo his call in the sense that I think what the pandemic has really highlighted for us is that we require urgent action to address some of the challenges to children's rights increased use of technology during this time.

And I ‑‑ you know, I think it's very clear that the risks of harm for children are real and they're distressing.  And, to be frank with you, I feel quite overwhelmed when I think about what it is that we need to do to resolve those problems.

But I also think that whilst I know we are all looking for a simple, straightforward, and immediate solution, actually, much of the work that we need to do is difficult and it's going to take time and thought.  And, of course, good solid processes for engaging children.  And we really have to commence this long term work now.

That's the urgent thing is to think about the long term future and commence the work now.

I think the issue of digital exclusion ‑‑ and I see that's coming up in the chat ‑‑ is a really critical one.  Regulatory and legislative frameworks.  Parents having access to meaningful resources that support them to guide their children.  Technology companies undertaking threat assessments and ensuring that children have what they need and children having the information and support that addresses the social and economic impacts of the pandemic on their lives.  But that's ‑‑ with that said, I think there's also an important opportunity in this pandemic for us all to ‑‑ this would be a big bold audacious hope, Natasha.  It's sometimes suggested.  And I think one way to think our way into this is that they want us to reflect briefly on the moon landing.  I know that sounds like a bizarre thing.

But what's sometimes suggested about the 1967 moon landing, it was a pivotal idea of globalization around the world.  Broadcast live on television and in the process of being broadcast, the moon landing assembled something of an international audience and broadcast images of a globe without boundaries back to the international audience.  Compelling us to imagine ourselves in the part of a global community.

So in the same way under the pandemic children are engaging online as an international audience if you will to do every day things like going to school.  So for the first time in history there's a mechanism for children to think of themselves as a global constituency.  And I think there's a really radical and unprecedented possibility in that very fact.

Imagine if we could enable children to unite to address their common concerns, so imagine and enact social change at school as we see them begin to do around the climate change challenge.  What a powerful movement of change that would be.  And I guess we can only realize that by taking children's participation rights really seriously but it's tapping into that power that would be my one great hope for our current generation of children growing up in a pandemic.

>> MODERATOR: That is a really exciting prospect.  I must say the idea of children uniting for change.  Bongani, if you're connected at the moment, put your video on because you are in a way, one of those youth leaders the idea of children coming together and uniting around areas that can ‑‑ like climate change.  What do you think you can do.  What would be your call out to your fellow sort of youth leaders in terms of that?  And what can we do as industry or academics or civil society to help bring that about and bring that about in safe manner?

>> I think it's a really great point that Amanda brought.  We need to recognize that the world is evolving.  The role of children and young people within the senior order has been evolved.  We've seen the youth activists how they're able to organize the Internet as a way of organizing themselves.  And also getting more people and more momentum in the activism.  So I think what's really important at the moment is for us to ensure that we'll be really ‑‑ we put everyone ‑‑ we champion the slogan of leave no one behind.

I think the slogan is always being used but when it comes to decision making platforms, young people only use as a token if I can say.

So organizations such as GSMA, UNICEF as well as government the way though have more engagement consultations may be with young people making decisions ensuring that young people do have seats at the table and yes, ensuring that young people do have a seat on the table and apart from that a critical issue that also came up on this discussion of issue of security as well as resources, I think as we've seen with this engagement that connectivity is a critical issue.

So we need to ensure that there is enough effort that I've been young people from across the road are able to engage and have proper connectivity in order to engage on the Internet.

And maybe my last point will touch on the issue that more kids are being involved, more kids are being ‑‑ starting their own YouTube channels and all that.  Hence, there is a critical need, a role that government needs to play.  So it's not only an issue of government doing things only but it's an issue of everyone understanding that they have a role to play and they need to come to the table.  So I think I'll leave it there for now.  And yeah.

 >> MODERATOR: Yes, leave no one behind.  That's a really nice segue to UNICEF.  Josi, if I can bring you back in, you heard what Bongani was saying.  And I know UNICEF's idea that no one child is left behind is quite key.  Do you have any additional comments or findings sort of closing thoughts from UNICEF that you'd like to share with us?

>> JOSIANNE GALEA: Thank you for that.  Very, very briefly.  Mostly to thank the panelists for your contributions.  It's a very valuable to hear directly from you this terms of what you have seen, Ohaila, your work and, Uri, seeing those trends in that report.  Bongani, thank you for sharing your directs experience and helping us think through what meaningful involvement really looks like and what the different roles for stakeholders are.

And Amanda, all the insights from your research.  It's great to hear such hope in some of the proposals and I can't see that we've heard that really seizing the opportunity and in this crisis while also being very frantic about the real risks and harms that are taking place and it would be great to follow up on participants.  Sorry we didn't have time to address everything that's come up in the chat.  But I've seen really interesting comments about curricula and digital and things I'm keen to continue this conversation and thank you for engaging in the topic and framing of the debate we put forward so looking forward to continuing this debate in the future.

>> MODERATOR: Okay.

Great.  We're not finished yet.  Ohaila, I want to bring you back in.  Okay.

So in terms of your closing statements or your really extreme wish list, what would you really, number one, want people to be doing, not just from governments and policy makers but also as industry and everyone listening on the call?  Please go ahead.

>> OHAILA SHOMAR:  Thank you.  I think it's very important to keep the child helpline running in each country.  It's the children trust and children can talk with the high confidentiality.  They can express themselves so keep the child helpline running and support them to continue their work is very important.

Also, to help low income governmental to empower the education system.

E‑learning education system that children can continue their learning and to see children dropping from the school and not continue their learning.

Also for the parents, like to be more close to your children, to listen to them, to talk to them and not to talk above them.  Because children, parents spend a lot of time talking about their children but listening to them.

So to listen to the children is very important.  I hope that we can move in a safe way from the pandemic because I think the word of the child will be different for the future.  They are with a lot of information to be safe in this world.  Thank you.

 >> MODERATOR: IGF has issued a voluntary commitment that will further the golds of the IGF and also the digital cooperation roadmap.  Is there something that either you as an individual or your organization will do in the next year as a sort of new commitment that you are ‑‑ that you'd like to share with us? .

>> Yeah, I talked about the initiative of the laptop or the iPad for each child.  And it's an initiative that we launch as voluntary work.  I mean it's not as part of the organization work.  So we can share this initiative with you.  And give you information how we did this.

Because we try to ask that inside the community to support this initiative because it's important that each child have access to learn.

And this initiative is voluntary work that I do with other colleagues, you know, so I can share this experience with you.

 >> MODERATOR: All right.  Thank you.  There is actually a link on the IGF2020 site.  I think Josi will put it in the chat where people can record their commitments as well.  I think the panelists here we'll talk about our commitments but also everyone on the call please have a look at that and share any commitments, even now and in our chat or also on the IGF link.  So Uri, just closing over to you, briefly, on voluntary commitments.

>> URI SADEH: Is there something that you as an individual personally or something that your crimes against children unit voluntarily in this way?

>> Putting him on the spot there.

>> URI SADEH:   We will continue our daily restless struggle for this ‑‑ in fact, as I stated, everyone is overwhelmed with the amount of protection that is needed.  And we do it daily.  I commend my team for the having to face the material that we have to face daily, they have to face daily, which is not something your brain is prepared to face.  I think.

And takes time to cope with.

And I think what drives us all is the knowledge that we are actually struggling to safeguard the child at the end of the road.  And to put an offender behind bars if needed so they do not harm further children.

So I would ‑‑ my commitment would be limited to that, to promoting the protection of children and their rights.  And through continuous work of INTERPOL's crimes against children unit.

>> MODERATOR: It really is terrific work.  And full admiration to you and all of your team and all those around the world who are working through the sorts of material that you have to deal with.

Really, it's really appreciated and another thing I would say is the report that you put out in September of this year was really interesting and as things change, if they change that would be really welcome by all of us so can keep on our side assessing what we're doing and see where we need to do more.  So thank you very much.  I'll pass over to Amanda, Amanda, do you have a voluntary commitment or something that you'd like to share?

>> AMANDA THIRD: I'm feeling on the spot but gut instinct we need to find ways to realize children's participation rights under the children's physical distancing, so my commitment would be to explore that question between now and the next IGF and to report back.

>> MODERATOR: Okay.  Thank you.  I think just to share with the audience as well my personal commitment.  I'll come to you, Bongani.  Great to see you're still on.  My commitment is similar to Amanda is around participation and listening to the youth voices so within GSMA continually encouraging our leaders to get young voices on the agenda and at our events to listen to them and to encourage business leaders and CEO of our members to do more to listen to young voices and hear directly from them about what they need.  That would be my commitment. 

So Bongani, I'm going to leave you with the final say as the youngest on our panel.  So please just give us some insight into any voluntary commitment you'll be doing also think wider with your university, thank you.  I think you're still on mute, Bongani.

>> Bongani:  Thank you, once again.  And I'm really sorry once again for the technical issues today.

>> MODERATOR: No worries.  Gives us a reminder of how important it is to keep you and others like you connected.

>> Bongani:  True.  I think I have three commitments that I'll volunteer to.  One is continue sharing and creating stories.  For raising awareness on the Internet.  So being in a different social media platforms.  This will be engaging directly with young people and issues that they face as well as safe to use on Internet.  My second commitment is hopefully continue having more road shows with around the country with UNICEF.  That way I get to engage more with young people and kids.  And utilize that more on sharing very important safe use of the Internet.

With kids because they're the ones who are more vulnerable to the Internet.

And basically share positive information with them as well.  I think my third and last commitment is I volunteer my time for organizations such as GSMA as well as UNICEF and other organizations in consulting with them, sharing our experiences as young people.  And what we can possibly do moving forward.  So yeah, those are my three commitments.  And yeah, thank you so much for having me as well today.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much.  I think that says it all.  So we ask for voluntary commitment from everyone and from our youth speaker we get three commitments.  I mean, what more can I say?  Thank you so much, Bongani.  And thank you to all our panelists.  Is it has been a really great session.  I hope you found it interesting.  And please get in contact with us if you want to share more.  We will continue to be talking about these issues.  So thanks all, very much.  And I hope the other IGF sessions go as well.  Great, thank you.  Bye.