via the UNICEF Office of Research
Worldwide, children’s digital activities and opportunities are growing at an exponential rate. Yet many of the creative, informative, interactive and participatory features of the digital environment remain substantially underused, especially in lower-income countries and among the most marginalized children. Moreover, amid endless potential, the internet can also compound offline risks and negative experiences such as unwanted sexual solicitation, bullying and harassment, and exposure to pornography and other potentially harmful materials.
These issues will be center stage at a forum organized by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University on 7 October. The forum will see discussion around a new scoping study: A Global Agenda for Children’s Rights in the Digital Age: Recommendations for Developing UNICEF’s Research Strategy, conducted by Prof Sonia Livingstone and Dr Monica Bulger for UNICEF’s Office of Research.
Sonia Livingstone, professor in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE, will examine the opportunities and risks afforded by digital and online technologies for children globally, setting out the research and policy priorities. Respondents include: Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, Urs Gasser; UNICEF’s Director of Communication, Paloma Escudero, Director; CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), Stephen Balkam; and Director of youth and technology research at the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, Amanda Lenhart.
Drawing on the framework of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, the forum will critically examine how to maximize the opportunities and minimize the harms associated with ICT for children around the world, in order to identify the research and policy priorities and to fill the gaps.
Identifying the state of play regarding children’s rights in the digital age is important to the work that UNICEF’s Office of Research has been conducting since 2011.
Download "A Global Agenda for Children’s Rights in the Digital Age: Recommendations for Developing UNICEF’s Research Strategy" from Berkman Fellow Sonia Livingstone and Dr. Monica Bulger