Protecting children’s rights in the digital environment
While digital environments provide valuable educational and social opportunities that support children’s development, they also bring significant risks, including cyberbullying, abuse and exploitation, and negative impacts on mental health.
Eurochild is committed to protecting children’s rights both online and offline by advocating for safety by design, promoting children’s empowerment in digital spaces, and supporting comprehensive legislation that guarantees their rights are upheld in the online world. This work will be driven by amplifying children’s voices and engaging members through peer-to-peer learning and impactful knowledge exchange.
Eurochild’s three main priorities regarding children’s rights in the digital environment are:
- Promoting children’s rights through safety- and privacy-by-design
- Preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation
- Ensuring the digital wellbeing of children
The context
In Europe, children live their lives online and offline indistinguishably. But the reality is that most children spend a the majority of their time in digital spaces that are not designed for them, and expose them to a wide range of risks, resulting in human rights violations. As highlighted in the OECD 4Cs typology, these risks can be linked to Content (i.e., harmful material and age-inappropriate material), Contact (i.e., harmful interactions), Conduct (i.e., inappropriate behaviour such as cyberbullying and verbal aggressions online), Commerce/Contract (i.e., financial scams, data exploitation, hidden costs), and cross-cutting.
Having strong competence to regulate the digital environment, the EU can play a major role in turning the guidance of UN General Comment No. 25 into practice; This allows the EU to set harmonised rules that raise the baseline of protection for all children across the EU, so children’s rights do not depend on which country a platform is established in or where a child happens to be when they go online. Through its laws, enforcement, and guidance, the EU can also drive “safety by design” and ensure that businesses prevent their services from being used in ways that cause or contribute to harms, including online violence.
This is why Eurochild’s work on children’s digital rights is essential. Based on the member and child-led evidence from across Europe, we turn lived realities into practical, rights-based recommendations rooted in the UNCRC.
Combating child sexual abuse and exploitation
In Europe, one in five children become victims of child sexual abuse and exploitation, and between 70% and 85% of child victims know their abuser. With 20.5 million reports and 63 million files of abuse submitted to the US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)’s CyberTipline in 2024, the child sexual abuse crisis has reached an unprecedented scale. On average, in 2024, an image, video or file containing Child Sexual Abuse Material was shared every half a second. The European Union ranks the highest for hosting this content.
To face the child sexual abuse crisis, a Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse (CSAR) was proposed by the European Commission in 2022 to introduce EU-wide rules requiring online service providers to prevent, detect, report and remove child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and solicitation of children. In 2025, after three years of negotiations, EU governments finally agreed on their position on the Regulation,which paves the way for trilogue negotiations with the European Parliament and the European Commission.
With the support of Oak Foundation, Eurochild is developing a number of activities to ensure the achievement of these goals.
EU Advocacy
Eurochild is working together with the EU and other civil society organisations to mainstream children’s rights in digital policy. To ensure this, we monitor the implementation of key legislation at the national level, including the Child Sexual Abuse Directive, the Digital Services Act, the General Data Protection Regulation, the Audiovisual Media Services Directive and the AI Act. We advocate for a child-centred approach in digital legislation that accounts for the rights of children and their specific needs and vulnerabilities.
Eurochild also advocates to combat child sexual abuse online as part of the Steering Group of the European Child Sexual Abuse Legislation Advocacy Group (ECLAG), a coalition of child rights non-governmental organisations fighting to protect children from sexual violence and abuse. These include our work in influencing the negotiations linked to the proposed Regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse and the revised Directive on combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child sexual abuse material.
Network of Online Visionaries in Action - NOVA Council
Eurochild's NOVA Council was established in April 2025 to bring the insights of children directly into the law- and policy-making processes related to children’s safety online. It brings together eight children, aged 12 to 17, from six European countries: Denis from Bulgaria, Mihael from Croatia, Lili from Hungary, Ruth and Tom from Ireland, Jake and Elena from Malta, and Maya from Romania.
Get to know Eurochild’s NOVA Council
Members Taskforce on children’s rights in the digital environment
While we work on children’s rights in the digital environment across our membership, we have set up a group of members working on this area to organise capacity-building and knowledge exchange activities. The aim is to build their capacity to advocate for children’s rights in the digital environment at national level, while involving them in opportunities to elevate their experiences to the EU policy-making scene. It is formed by 31 members from 22 different countries.
Additional Taskforce Resources for Eurochild members (Members' Room)
Updates:
Eurochild’s impact on the European Parliament’s Report on the protection of minors online
#PassTheLaw - Children's online safety can't wait any longer
The rights of children in the digital environment
ECLAG: A coalition of more than 60 organisations working to end child sexual abuse on and offline
Evidence to Protect (Jan-Jun 2026)
This project brings together cross-European expertise and media engagement on children’s online safety with the national child helplines in Estonia and Greece. By translating helpline evidence and frontline insights into compelling, human-centred stories, the project will make complex issues accessible and impactful for wider audiences. Through proactive public engagement, the project will challenge dominant yet misleading narratives and re-centre children’s safety as a shared societal priority.
Updates:
Coming soon!
POP Project
Eurochild is partner of the ‘Protection through Online Participation (POP)’ project, led by the UN and ITU, which aims to understand how children and Eurochild is a partner of the ‘Protection through Online Participation (POP)’ project, led by the UN and ITU, which aims to understand how children and young people can access safety and protection online. For instance, they use the internet to report violence, to connect with helplines, peers or create solutions. Understanding how children use digital platforms to be safe is key to improving such services and increase their access to support overall. POP is collecting quantitative and qualitative information from helplines and children and good practice from industry, to map child and youth led solutions addressing the protection needs of their peers.
Further information:
VOICE Project (closed)
The VOICE project, conducted by Eurochild, ECPAT International, and Terre des Hommes Netherlands on behalf of the Down to Zero Alliance, engaged children and caregivers in 15 countries to inform policy discussions on digital safety. While digital spaces offer learning and entertainment opportunities, they also present risks like cyberbullying and exposure to harmful content, constituting a violation of children's rights. The report emphasises the necessity of effective safety measures and children's participation in shaping online safety policies.
TOMAS Project (closed)
Towards UnifOrMed Legislation Against CSAM project is a collaborative initiative that addresses the problem of online sexual exploitation of children in the Western Balkans by supporting alignment of national laws with the EU proposal for a Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse. The main goal of the project is to prevent the Western Balkans from becoming a hub for child sexual abuse material and grooming. Eurochild participated in this project in an advisory role to support capacity building of the project's partners and the alignment of national legislations with the proposed EU Regulation and Directive.
Contact: Francesca Pisanu, EU Advocacy Officer.