NEW YORK/MANILA”•Despite the children’s massive online presence”•one in three Internet users worldwide is a child”•too little is being done to protect them from the perils of the digital world and to increase their access to safe online content, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund said in its annual flagship report released on Tuesday.
The State of the World’s Children 2017 is Unicef’s first comprehensive look at the different ways digital technology is affecting children’s lives and life chances, identifying dangers as well as opportunities.
The group argues that governments and the private sector have not kept up with the pace of change, exposing children to new risks and harms and leaving millions of the most disadvantaged children behind.
“For better and for worse, digital technology is now an irreversible fact of our lives,” said Unicef Executive Director Anthony Lake.
“In a digital world, our dual challenge is how to mitigate the harms while maximizing the benefits of the Internet for every child.”
The report explores the benefits digital technology can offer the most disadvantaged children, including those growing up in poverty or affected by humanitarian emergencies. These include increasing their access to information, building skills for the digital workplace, and giving them a platform to connect and communicate their views.
But the report shows that millions of children are missing out. Around a third of the world’s youth”•346 million”•are not online, exacerbating the inequities and reducing children’s ability to participate in an increasingly digital economy.
The report also examines how the internet increases children’s vulnerability to risks and harms, including the misuse of their private information, access to harmful content and cyberbullying. The ubiquitous presence of mobile devices, the report notes, has made online access for many children less supervised”•and potentially more dangerous.
And digital networks like the Dark Web and cryptocurrencies are enabling the worst forms of exploitation and abuse, including trafficking and ‘made to order’ online child sexual abuse.
In the Philippines, the risks to children are high with the country being the number one global source of child pornography and a hub for the live-stream sexual abuse trade. Around eight out of every 10 Filipino children are at risk of online sexual abuse or bullying.
“Child pornography is a billion-dollar industry, and Filipino children are the ones being traded and exploited online. Children who are made to perform sex acts in front of a web camera will never get their childhood back. We must all work together to protect our children,” Unicef Representative Lotta Sylwander said.
To tackle the problem of online child abuse, the Unicef in the Philippines is working with the government, private sector and child protection advocates to strengthen legislation and its implementation, support collaboration among partners, conduct studies and increase awareness.
To generate evidence, Unicef Philippines is conducting three studies: the Kids Online Survey, the National Study on Child Online Sexual Exploitation and Changing Social Behavior on Child Online Protection in Communities. The studies seek to understand the root causes of online sexual violence and inform Unicef’s future interventions in this area.
To strengthen coordination and help the capacity development of partners, Unicef Philippines organizes workshops and provides technical support to local and international dialogues to share best practices, safeguard standards and mechanisms and create a coalition for change within industry and related private sectors.
In 2017 Unicef Philippines launched the Children’s Rights and Business Principles to the Philippine business community in partnership with the Makati Business Club and the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, with the support of key business leaders such as Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala.
The launch generated sign-ups for training on the Principles from 25 companies. Unicef Philippines also continues to engage internet service providers, social media networks and remittance agencies to craft online child safeguarding policies and change business practices to stop the creation and circulation of online child sexual abuse content.