Director-General/Executive Director
Your Excellency, Minister Tajani,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am honored to join you today to discuss the critical issue of protecting children’s rights in the digital age.
In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, where one in three internet users are under the age of 18, our priority must be the protection of our most vulnerable: our children.
We must equip them with the tools to navigate the challenges presented by a modern, digital economy.
The internet offers immense potential, granting children access to education, opening new career opportunities, and expanding their horizons.
Yet, it is also a double-edged sword.
The dark corners of the web have created disturbing new avenues for exploitation and abuse.
It is our collective responsibility to shield children from criminals and predators who exploit technology to inflict harm on them.
With just a click, child sexual abuse material can be shared globally at unprecedented speed.
The emergence of artificial intelligence has also blurred the lines of reality, by generating thousands of images, normalizing this harmful content, and overwhelming national capacities to distinguish it from real children in need of urgent protection.
The statistics paint a chilling picture.
Data collected by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reveals that cases of child sexual abuse material have skyrocketed over the past decade, from 400,000 in 2012, to a staggering 32 million in 2022.
These are not just numbers; they represent real children and innocent victims whose lives will be forever scarred.
The impact is far-reaching and devastating, affecting victims’ physical and mental well-being.
Many victims and survivors often suffer from PTSD, along with sleep disorders, depression, and anxiety.
This material can potentially be distributed and re-uploaded without end, perpetuating a cycle of abuse that haunts survivors well into adulthood.
And the more this material is viewed, the more likely it is that offenders may escalate their crimes from digital exploitation to physical harm.
This material also plays a crucial role in creating, sustaining, and promoting exploitative networks and behaviour.
In 2020, a Europol operation in Germany uncovered a massive underground child exploitation network with over 400,000 members on the dark web, operating beyond the jurisdictional or digital boundaries of one single country.
Recognizing the urgency of this issue, the UN General Assembly in 2022 called for stronger national and international efforts to protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse, including the removal of child sexual abuse material.
Removing such content is a powerful form of prevention, protecting those who have already suffered from further anguish and preventing the normalization that leads to the abuse of new victims.
We all have a responsibility.
Internet Service Providers, including technology and communication companies, as well as social media platforms must have some level of accountability for the content shared through their services, while States must ensure they have the tools to prevent, detect, and remove child sexual abuse material.
The tools and technology to address this issue are readily available.
We need to have the will to act, and rest assured, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime is ready to lead and support all actors in this endeavour.
Earlier this year, UNODC convened an expert group meeting, in partnership with the United Kingdom, to strengthen global efforts and understanding on the removal of child sexual abuse material from the web, and I would like to thank the EU and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection for their valuable support.
The meeting resulted in an important call to action, backed by 75 governments, urging swift and decisive measures to remove known child sexual abuse material from the internet and prevent it from being reuploaded.
The Member States of the UN are now in the process of negotiating a new convention to counter the use of ICTs for criminal purposes, which could prove to be a monumental step forward in curbing child sexual abuse online, and UNODC is supporting this process as Secretariat.
Meanwhile, through our Global Cybercrime Programme, we are providing technical assistance and capacity building to national authorities, civil society, and the private sector in preventing, detecting, and prosecuting online child sexual abuse and exploitation, and we stand ready to continue supporting Member States in this critical area.
And we are exerting every effort to raise awareness and mobilize action for the safety and protection of children in digital spaces.
Ladies and gentlemen,
As we gather here in New York to mobilize global action and re-invigorate our progress towards Agenda 2030, we must reaffirm our commitment to ending violence against children by eradicating child sexual abuse material from the internet.
Our children are our future, and together, we must create a safer world for them – a world where they can grow, learn, and thrive free from violence, both online and offline.
Thank you.