12:00-12:50 OFFICIAL OPENING & KEYNOTES

1:00 -2:00 INTERACTIVE SESSIONS

• Youth Participation beyond the Buzzword
• Peer to Peern Support Programmes
• Peace Corners and Self Regulation

2:00 – 3:00 PANEL TALK AND Q&A

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There will be 18 years between the last and the next UN child rights review in Belgium. The last child rights review was in 2019. The following one won’t be before 2037, due to capacity constraints. The time gap could not be more symbolic. An entire generation of Belgian children will have grown up without international assessment of the implementation of their rights. This is all the more disappointing because a recent review by the UN Human Rights Council exposed a number of challenges regarding children’s rights in Belgium.

In May this year the UN Human Rights Council examined the human rights situation in Belgium as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). During this process countries assess one another’s human rights policies and formulate recommendations to improve them. Belgium received 300 recommendations, many of which also highlighted important challenges in the field of children’s rights.

The review is far more than a formality taking place behind the scenes of international institutions. The recommendations that emerge from it directly affect the lives and rights of children and young people. However a thorough child rights screening by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child remains crucial.

Child Rights Network welcomes the fact that Belgium accepted several recommendations:

• Tackling child poverty
• Implementing the European Child Guarantee
• Strengthening inclusive education
• Ensuring safe and appropriate reception conditions for children in asylum procedures

At the same time, Belgium did not accept several other important recommendations:

• Safeguarding the ban on detaining families with children for migration-related reasons
• Including in the Civil Code an immediate and explicit ban on violence in child-rearing

The UPR cannot replace a thorough review by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. However, while that review remains postponed, the recommendations and commitments made during the UPR carry even greater weight. Child Rights Network will continue to ensure that these commitments do not remain empty promises and to remind policymakers of their promises and responsibilities. Children’s rights are not optional ambitions, but fundamental rights that must be guaranteed across all policy areas.

For further information, please, read the full op-ed on mo.be or contact sien.crivits@sterk.net and koen.vandewiele@stekr.net .

The starting point was a seemingly simple question: what happens when children increasingly have to meet certain conditions before they can fully exercise their rights? Sometimes those conditions are explicit. Support may require an official diagnosis, financial assistance may depend on administrative procedures, and access to services may be linked to particular criteria. At other times, barriers are less visible: families need time, knowledge or confidence to navigate complex systems, or services simply have no place available when support is needed. Together, these examples raise an important question: who is most likely to lose out when accessing a right becomes difficult?

Rights and responsibility
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises children as rights-holders. Their rights do not depend on merit, behaviour or family circumstances. Public policy inevitably involves rules, eligibility criteria and limited resources. The challenge is to examine what these conditions mean in practice. Do they help support reach children who need it, or create additional barriers? Participants reflected on a wider shift towards individual responsibility, activation, monitoring and sanctions. Such approaches may pursue legitimate policy objectives, but can obscure the structural circumstances shaping children’s lives. A child does not experience poverty, education, housing, care and leisure as separate policy domains. They come together in one life.

Looking at the issue from three angles
Three thematic sessions explored these tensions across different areas of children’s lives. The first focused on social rights, examining how conditional access to housing, income, care and social support affects children, even when policies formally target adults. The second explored the changing image of children and young people in public debate, particularly narratives around responsibility, nuisance, boundaries and control, and what these mean for their position as rights-holders. The third focused on educational inequality. While education may be universally available, children do not enter the system with equal resources or opportunities. Participants discussed the difference between offering everyone the same thing and creating the conditions for every child to participate and develop. Across all three discussions, the same question returned: when circumstances are unequal, what does equality of rights require from institutions and society?

Four workshops, four ways of moving forward
The afternoon shifted from identifying problems to exploring possible responses. One workshop examined how scientific, professional and experiential knowledge can be brought together to better understand complex social issues. Another explored how organisations can navigate increasingly polarised public debate, where defending children’s rights often means making room for complexity. A coalition lab invited participants to consider how organisations with different backgrounds and priorities can build collective action around shared concerns and goals. Finally, participants reflected on the Childcare Case, a Belgian civil society campaign combining public mobilisation and legal action around access to childcare. It offered concrete lessons on turning a rights concern into a broader strategy for change.

What happens between the sessions matters too
Knowledge events are partly about what happens on stage, but much of their value lies in conversations, unexpected connections and recognising shared challenges from different professional perspectives. One participant captured an important lesson: a child does not live in separate policy domains. Education, poverty, housing, care and leisure intersect in a single life. This is why children’s rights work requires different forms of expertise and why no organisation can address these questions alone.

From conversation to collective action
The event did not end when participants left the room. One conversation is already developing further within the Flemish Child Rights Network, where members are working on an open letter about growing pressure on the universal character of children’s rights. It is one example of what a knowledge event can achieve: not simply sharing what we already know, but creating the conditions for a next step. All Children, All Rights? therefore ended with an open question rather than a conclusion.

If a right belongs to every child, what must we change to ensure that every child can actually exercise it?

Picture taken from STEKR’s website.

In late September 2026, child rights defenders and experts gathered in Dublin for the “Standing up to Anti-Child Rights Movements” conference, co-organised by Eurochild, the Irish Children’s Rights Alliance, Community Foundation Ireland and the Irish Presidency of the European Union. Amid rich discussions on the rising tide of illiberal and anti-child rights pressure across Europe, I was grateful to be given the opportunity to share the story of Hungary – a country where child rights advocacy faced a hostile political and institutional environment over the past years until a profound turning point in the spring of 2026.
At the conference, we listened with shared hope and empathy to our Serbian colleague as he described similar anti-child rights pressures in his country. It brings us immense joy to see that democracy has achieved a sweeping victory in Serbia in recent days.

For years, independent civil society organizations in Hungary operated within a severely restricted civic space. The pressure formed a reinforcing pattern of politicisation, delegitimisation, institutional blockades, and targeted isolation. When child protection is used as a political weapon, independent NGOs advocating for child rights are frequently branded as political actors or foreign influences. Independent programs were halted by administrative interference, partnerships were discouraged, and child rights/protection professionals faced a chilling effect that silenced critical voices. When this happens, the ultimate losers are children, who are left without independent defenders to voice their vulnerabilities.

Our core lesson is that the answer to a shrinking space is never to withdraw, but to connect. The Hungarian Child Rights NGO Coalition relied on solid evidence, joint coalition actions, mutual solidarity among members and multi-layered advocacy channels extending from local communities to European platforms like Eurochild. The Hungarian Child Rights NGO Coalition has transitioned from a critical voice into a regular policy partner. Today, we actively participate in parliamentary oversight, governmental consultations, monitoring mechanisms and policy roundtables.

In Hungary, the political shift of April 2026 opened a completely new chapter. A changed political environment paved the way for systemic transparency in child protection. Under new state secretarial leadership of Hintalovon founder Szilvia Gyurkó, the first comprehensive child protection diagnosis was conducted, exposing hidden crises – such as hundreds of infants stranded in hospitals due to administrative gridlock, which the coalition had also long emphasized in its previous statements. Child protection reforms have begun, including structural updates to juvenile justice and a ban on fear-inducing political billboards in public spaces.

The lessons from Hungary and the wider region are clear for our European community. Protecting children requires much more than good laws on paper; it demands an open, resilient civic ecosystem where civil society can organize freely, professionals can speak without fear, and independent evidence and monitoring is welcomed. When we stand connected across borders through networks like Eurochild, we ensure that no child rights defender ever stands alone.

For further information, please contact Boglárka Jánoskúti, Chair at the Hungarian Child Rights NGO Coalition, external expert at Hintalovon ECPAT Hungary.

Since the rise of social media, we have talked about and problematised the so‑called attention economy. An economic model in which our time and attention are the most important currency, and where tech companies develop services designed to keep us engaged for as long as possible, either to influence us or to sell us something. In the attention economy, knowledge about how and how long we engage with specific content on social media is highly valuable. If we spend a long time engaging with content about gardening, that is valuable information for companies that want to sell lawnmowers and tulip bulbs.
But the attention economy is no longer a sufficient concept to describe what is unfolding in the digital sphere. A new economic model has emerged. It is no longer only our attention that is at stake, but rather our need for relationships: compassion, care, mirroring, and so on. Welcome to the attachment economy.

Children’s need for security
In the attachment economy, economic value is created by building and maintaining relationships with users, not only by keeping us in front of the screen, but also by fostering trust and providing the experience of a personal relationship. Qualities that were previously exclusive to human interaction are now being simulated by technology. The tool used for this is AI chatbots.
The stronger the relationship feels, the more the user shares: more thoughts, more feelings, and more private information. This kind of loyalty can be commercially exploited by the companies behind the technology. In the coming weeks, the first targeted advertisements will appear on the popular platform ChatGPT. With the opportunity to market in this way comes an increased incentive to harvest data aggressively.

Children are particularly susceptible to the mechanisms of the attachment economy. Few children have a mature understanding of what AI is or how the technology works. For example, research on children’s digital lives shows that many children have difficulty determining whether the person they are chatting with is a robot or a real human. One child who participated in one of our studies explains that he knows what a chatbot is, yet he is still convinced that “there must be someone sitting there controlling it. Exploiting children’s inherent need for security, mirroring, and recognition is deeply problematic. Yet this is precisely what the companies behind these ingratiating AI chatbots are doing. Beyond the commercial exploitation of a vulnerable consumer group, the rise of the attachment economy also raises serious concerns for children’s psychological development.

“Only talk to my chatbot”
Children’s and young people’s development of social skills depends on relationships that include disagreement, demands, and boundaries. A chatbot never gets angry, makes demands, or requires an apology. It is always understanding and always on the user’s side. If one of a child’s most frequent conversational partners functions this way, human relationships may come to seem difficult and conflict‑laden. As a 12‑year‑old girl writes to the Children’s Helpline’s advice column about her use of an AI chatbot:“I have become addicted, and I can’t be social with people in real life. I only want to talk to my chatbot because he understands me, even though he is a robot.”

For many children, it may feel consequence‑free and more accessible to seek advice about difficult issues on ChatGPT than to reach out to a person in their immediate environment. But AI chatbots are commercial products, and the companies behind them make money from data. When children share thoughts about loneliness, insecurity, health, or family problems, their vulnerability becomes part of a commercial value chain. Even more serious is the fact that there are tragic examples of these ingratiating chatbots driving children toward self‑harm, risky behavior, and even suicide.

In other words, we are talking about a business model designed to coax sensitive information out of children, validate their perceptions of themselves and the world, regardless of what those perceptions are, while simultaneously disclaiming responsibility for the consequences. This should set off alarm bells for everyone.
None of this reflects weakness on the part of children. Children are not irresponsible. They are simply children. Nor can the responsibility be placed on parents. We are dealing with powerful technologies developed by companies that prioritize profit over children’s well‑being and that, despite warnings, launch products that demonstrably can harm children and young people.

AI must be clearly limited
Fortunately, awareness of the potential consequences of AI chatbots for children’s development is growing. The debate is simmering in Brussels, where other children’s organizations are also pointing to chatbots as a blind spot for policymakers, professionals, and parents. At Børns Vilkår, we see every reason to apply a precautionary principle when it comes to chatbots. Children should not chat with bots that have a financial interest in their emotions and that are designed to create attachment. AI can be a useful tool and can also benefit children. But tools do not need to pretend to be human.

When a chatbot ends a conversation with warm phrases and caring formulations, this is not necessary for functionality. It is necessary for the relationship and the attachment, and attachment is what can be converted into profit. If AI chatbots are to be part of children’s lives at all, they must therefore be clearly defined as tools. They must not simulate care, intimacy, or friendship. They must not encourage continuous correspondence and emotional dependency. And they must not collect or use data for commercial purposes.

Several countries have already introduced or announced age limits for social media, Denmark among them. It is positive that the harmful effects of social media are having political consequences. But a ban on social media for children will be insufficient if highly human‑like chatbots are simultaneously allowed to operate freely in the same digital environments. If we are serious about protecting children in digital spaces, AI chatbots must therefore be included in regulation on an equal footing with social media.

Read the full report

The project consisted of four regional consultation events and one final national event. These events provided children and young people with opportunities to express their views on issues they themselves had identified as important. Adults and local decision-makers also took part in the regional consultations, while national-level decision-makers participated in the final event.

The central theme was children’s right to participation – how children understand and experience participation, and what meaningful participation should look like in practice. Discussions focused on four key areas: school, healthcare, the green transition and the digital environment.

A total of 139 children participated in the project. Their key messages were:

• School: Introducing more practical and interactive teaching methods, fostering greater mutual respect between teachers and students.
• Healthcare: Reducing waiting times for specialists, ensuring that doctors communicate directly with children, rather than discussing their health and treatment primarily with their parents.
• Green transition: Raising environmental awareness through education and encouraging greater use of public transport.
• Digital environment: Introducing appropriate age restrictions for the use of digital technologies, strengthening education on online safety, improving digital literacy among older generations and establishing a digital platform for participation.

The views and opinions gathered during the consultations were compiled into SAFY’S White paper on the implementation of children’s right to participation. One of the project’s most significant achievements was the opportunity for children and young people to personally present the White Paper to five ministers or state secretaries at their respective ministries. These visits gave young participants a valuable opportunity to speak directly with national decision-makers, present their perspectives and engage in meaningful discussions about issues affecting their lives.

The project demonstrated that children and young people not only want to be heard but also have valuable ideas and recommendations to contribute. Meaningful participation requires more than giving children a voice – it means listening to their views, taking them seriously and ensuring they can influence decisions that affect their lives.

For further information, please contact Petra Zega, Professional Associate, at the Slovenian Association of Friends of Youth.

Image taken from Slovenian Association of Friends of Youth of website.

A perspective of (and for) children and young people
The state of implementation of children’s rights in Poland
The report presents the findings of a study conducted in autumn 2024, involving more than 1,600 teenagers from across Poland, as well as their parents and teachers. It examines children’s rights through three key areas: protection, provision and participation.
The findings address a range of issues, including violence, discrimination, privacy, education, leisure, access to information and young people’s influence over decisions affecting their lives. Importantly, the report draws attention to the differences between how young people experience their rights at home and at school, and the extent to which their opinions are taken into account.

More respect for young people’s image
Research report
The report examines the sharing and publication of photographs and videos of children and young people online, with particular attention to the question of consent. It is based on a study conducted in autumn 2024, involving more than 1,600 teenagers, as well as parents and teachers.
The findings explore who publishes young people’s images, whether their permission is sought, how teenagers feel about having their photographs shared, and the potential consequences of publication without consent. The report also examines ways of protecting young people’s images and presents recommendations on this issue.
A central focus is the importance of taking children’s and young people’s views into account when decisions are made about sharing their images.

How can we effectively reach, engage and retain young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEETs)?

This webinar, organised within the PRODIGY project, will provide practical guidelines and approaches for strengthening outreach, building meaningful relationships with NEETs, fostering engagement and supporting long-term participation. More than a training session, the webinar will be a space for exchange, discussion and peer learning.

Participants will have the opportunity to share experiences, reflect on common challenges and explore together practical strategies and solutions for engaging NEETs more effectively.The session will combine practical inputs with an open discussion, encouraging participants to contribute their perspectives and experiences.

The project, funded by the SII+ has been implemented in Italy, Bulgaria and Greece; it outreached vulnerable young and promote training on digital and green skills; this is the final European event.

Register now

In this 11th episode of the Eurochild podcast, we explore some of the projects sub-granted by our Daphne-CHILD initiative with Terre des Hommes which supported grassroot civil society organisations address violence against children in 9 countries. From bullying, to institutional violence and conflicts, violence affects children in many ways. This is why it is important to tackle it together with children from the very beginning.

The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Previous episodes here.

Nearly one in four* children in the European Union is at risk of poverty or social exclusion. As negotiations on the EU’s next long-term budget for 2028–2034, the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), gather pace, Europe faces a political choice: protect and strengthen investment in children, or allow their needs to become less visible among competing priorities.

That choice was the focus of the event, held at the European Parliament InfoHub in Brussels. Co-chaired by Eurochild and Save the Children, the Alliance convened it with support from a Tanya’s Dream Fund project led by Eurochild. It brought together Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), the European Commission, civil society, financial institutions and philanthropy, with around 90 participants in person and almost 50 online to discuss how the next EU budget can deliver meaningful change for children and families.

A child cannot wait for the next budget cycle

“A child born today will be eight years old by the end of the next MFF”, highlighted Dr Ally Dunhill, Director of Policy, Advocacy and Communications at Eurochild, in her opening remarks. Those are formative years in which access to early childhood education and care, healthcare, nutritious meals, safe housing and family support can change the course of a life. Prevention and early intervention are not optional add-ons: they help families stay together, reduce avoidable harm and provide children with opportunities that exclusion would otherwise deny them.

The challenge remains immense. Eurochild highlighted that around 19.2 million children (24.3%) were at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2025, roughly the same number as the 2019 baseline. The EU’s ambition to lift at least five million children out of poverty by 2030 is not being met at the necessary pace. Participants stressed that the social and economic costs of underinvestment are borne by children now and by society for years to come.

Protect what works and give the European Child Guarantee the resources it needs

The European Child Guarantee has already established a common framework for delivering essential services to children in need. As Eurochild’s Zuzana Konradova, EU Affairs Coordinator, explained during the first panel, it has also improved national coordination, monitoring and accountability. Concrete examples include the expansion of free school meals in Croatia and stronger access to early childhood education in Lithuania. But policy frameworks alone cannot deliver a structural reduction in child poverty without sustained investment.

A central concern was the proposed move towards National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs). The European Commission underlined that integrated plans could combine infrastructure and services more effectively, and that child poverty would remain a required investment area. Civil society and several MEPs warned, however, that flexibility without protected allocations risks leaving children to compete with more politically visible priorities.

In a video message, MEP Klára Dobrev (S&D) called for a strong European Social Fund and at least €20 billion dedicated to the European Child Guarantee. MEP Estelle Ceulemans (S&D) highlighted the risk of weakening the visibility and predictability of social funding. MEP Hristo Petrov (Renew Europe), who spoke on the second panel, put the issue simply: “Earmarking makes a priority harder to forget.”

Georgi Elenkov, Director of Policies for Children at the National Network for Children in Bulgaria, stressed that dedicated funding must go hand in hand with stronger accountability for the results achieved. Drawing on Bulgaria’s experience, he warned that greater flexibility in the next EU budget must not come at the expense of protected investment in children.

Social investment is Europe’s future investment

In the second panel, speakers from the European Investment Bank and the Council of Europe Development Bank illustrated how loans, guarantees, grants and advisory support can complement EU funds and help deliver schools, housing, healthcare and community services. Save the Children Sweden showed why long-term EU support matters even in wealthier welfare states; Tanya’s Dream Fund explained how early support, trusted community relationships and family-centred services can prevent crises before they escalate.

Such partnerships can help scale effective solutions, but they cannot substitute for predictable public financing or clear accountability. As speakers repeatedly stressed, the test of success is not merely whether funds are allocated or projects completed, but whether the most disadvantaged children actually receive support when they need it.

Five priorities for the negotiations identified at the event

• Protect a strong, identifiable European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) and ensure that poverty reduction and children’s rights remain explicit objectives of EU spending.
• Guarantee meaningful minimum allocations: at least 25% for social inclusion; at least 5% for tackling child poverty in every Member State, rising to 10% where child poverty is higher; and at least €20 billion for the European Child Guarantee.
• Fund prevention and accessible, high-quality services together, not just buildings, but qualified staff, outreach, transport, family support and community-based alternatives to institutional care.
• Embed binding child-rights safeguards, including protection against financing segregation and institutionalisation, and strengthen child-sensitive monitoring and the European Semester.
• Give children, families and civil society a real role in shaping and monitoring investment, and measure improvements in their lives rather than spending alone.

As the Parliament and Member States negotiate the next MFF, Eurochild and its partners in the EU Alliance for Investing in Children call on decision-makers across political groups to turn Europe’s commitments into protected funding and measurable results. Children’s rights should not depend on which competing priority attracts the loudest voice. As Georgi Elenkov argued, social cohesion and equal opportunities are fundamental to Europe’s long-term security and should not be set against defence spending. Investing in children is an investment in social cohesion, security, resilience and Europe’s long-term prosperity.

Look at the photos from the event

*Note: 2026 AROPE statistics