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Joint submission to Global Digital Compact

This joint position paper, backed by leading global child rights organisations, focuses on ensuring children’s rights are upheld in the digital environment. The paper emphasises the importance of the UN Global Digital Compact in promoting and safeguarding these rights, aligning with the standards set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and its General comment No. 25.

The digital environment plays an increasingly significant role across most aspects of children’s lives, offering opportunities but equally presenting significant risks. One in three internet users is a child, and, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, children’s development, relationships, education and play are increasingly mediated by digital technologies.

The UN Global Digital Compact is the opportunity to drive awareness and reinforce the global political commitment to the implementation of children’s existing rights as set out in the UNCRC and its General comments in the digital world and focus on political will. We recommend that the UN Global Digital Compact reaffirm the core tenets of children’s rights in the digital environment and include the key overarching principles outlined in this paper.