1

Working Group on Child Online Protection (COP)

Wednesday9October 2013
Geneva, Switzerland

Opening Remarks

Houlin Zhao

Deputy Secretary-General,
International Telecommunication Union

Distinguished colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,

  • It is a great pleasure to be herewith you today, and on behalf of the ITU Secretary-General, Dr Hamadoun Touré, let me offer a very warm welcome to all participants– both here and following us online.
  • I appreciate your continued support and commitment to this important Working Group on Child Online Protection, COP.
  • Just yesterday, we concluded a two-day preparatory meeting for next years’WSIS+10 High-Level Event.
  • In the contributions we received, as well as in the discussions we heard yesterday, wesee that protecting children online comes very high on the priority list for all stakeholders for the next decade beyond 2015.

Ladies and gentlemen,

  • Children and young people are leading digital evolution in many countries around the world.
  • It is therefore important to look at the impact of this digital revolution on those children and young people, because it represents both incredible opportunities and fresh challenges.
  • Online safety has both direct and indirect implications for protecting children’s rights, including: the right to privacy; the right to education and health; and especially the right to protection from all forms of violence and abuse, as well as sexual exploitation.
  • Children, for example, can be exposed to inappropriate content or contact, including from potential perpetrators of sexual abuse or violence. Their reputation can suffer from the online circulation of sensitive personal information, rumours, or pictures.
  • We regularly hear about it or read about it in the news, and it is clear that this has now become a global menace that is almost as widespread as the Internet itself.
  • The challenge is to find an appropriate balance between ensuring that children exercise their right to information, freedom of thought and expression, and at the same time ensuring that they are protected from violence, abuse and exploitation while using ICTs.

Distinguished colleagues,

  • AT ITU, we are playing our part in this global effort to protect children online through our global convening ability; through forums such as this working group; and also through our global reach, whichbrings together partners from all stakeholder groups.
  • Through Plenipotentiary Resolution 179, we are glad to make this working group available as a platform for discussion, information sharing and knowledge exchange on issues related to child online safety.
  • COP, under the guidance of this group, has achieved a great deal over the past few months:
  • We are working with our partners to update the Guidelines for Industry, and we have strengthened important partnerships with some key stakeholders, including UNICEF, Trend Micro, Facebook and The Walt Disney Company, as well as many other leading organizations working in this area.
  • We are also working with our partners in various regions of the world, especially in developing countries, to bring awareness and provide necessary tools. For example:
  • ITU has worked with the Internet Watch Foundation, IWF, to establish a hotline in Uganda;
  • ITU in partnership with the African Child Online Protection Education and Awareness Centre, ACOPEA, and Facebook, is running a pilot exercise in Ethiopia for training community activists and others in key safety messages and tools; and
  • ITU, in conjunction with local partners, is also organizing awareness and training workshops in many other countries around the world.
  • Early last month, we organized the BYND2015 Global Youth Summit as a platform for young people to lend their voice and influence decisions at the United Nations on ‘The Future We Want’.
  • The Youth Declaration resulting from the Summit is a powerful statement from young people, and it was brought by President Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica to the United Nations General Assembly just two weeks ago.
  • As one of the main themes of the Summit, the ‘Be Safe and Be Smart’ track was organized by ITU with the invaluable support of our partners, the Walt Disney Company and UNICEF.
  • Here, the ‘Train the Trainer’ programme demonstrated the use of an online safety training kit developed by Club Penguin, a virtual world for children, to help younger children use the web safely and responsibly.
  • In addition, ITU and UNICEF organized a Global Video Competition on the ‘Be Safe and Be Smart’ theme. The winning video message will be produced as an animation, after the top ten video concepts have been selected.
  • We are grateful for the support we have consistently received from the Patron of COP, President Laura Chinchilla;from the COP Champion, Dame Patience Jonathan, First Lady of Nigeria; from the COP Special Envoy, Deborah Taylor Tate; and of course from our COP partners.

Ladies and gentlemen,

  • I am happy to see that we have a comprehensive agenda, with speakers covering many facets of child online protection.
  • I encourage experts from governments, private companies, civil society, academia and international organizations to take action towards making cyberspace a safe, healthy and productive environment – especially for our children and youth.

Thank you for your attention.