To join the Declaration, send the appropriate notice
to the RCC Executive Committee
at ecrcc@rcc.org.ru

DECLARATION

OF THE REGIONAL COMMONWEALTH
IN THE FIELD OF COMMUNICATIONS
ON THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN IN THE DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT

We, who have joined the Declaration,

recalling

a) the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, adopted by the UN General Assembly on 20 November 1959;

b) the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, approved by the UN General Assembly on 20 November 1989;

c) relevant provisions of the UN resolutions on child protection and child protection in the online environment;

d) International Telecommunication Union resolutions on child online protection and its efforts to develop and disseminate the ITU 2021 Child Online Protection Guidelines and Recommendations;

e) that the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), in its 2005 Tunis Commitment (para. 24), recognized the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the protection of children and in enhancing the development of children. calling upon Member States to strengthen action to protect children from abuse and defend their rights in the context of ICTs, and emphasizing that the best interests of the child are a primary consideration;

f) the commitment in the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society (para. 90(q)) regarding the use of ICTs as a tool to achieve the internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including the Sustainable Development Goals set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the WSIS action lines, by, inter alia, incorporating regulatory, self-regulatory and other effective policies and frameworks to protect children and young people from abuse and exploitation through ICTs into national plans of action and e‑strategies;

reaffirming its commitment to the goal of ensuring comprehensive protection for children in the digital environment,

taking into account the growing development, diversification and spread of access to ICTs worldwide, in particular the Internet, and the increasingly widespread use thereof by children, at times with no mediation, control or guidance?

emphasizing

a) the rapid evolution of ICT’s, including artificial intelligence, which gives rise to both new opportunities and new risks for children;

b) the benefits of sharing experience and knowledge in this field at the international level,

being convinced that in order to address the issue of cybersecurity for children, it is critical that proactive measures be employed in order to protect children online at national, regional or international level;

recognizing

a) the increasing incidence of child abuse in the digital environment and the need for effective measures to improve the digital literacy of children, parents, guardians, and educators and to enhance children's digital safety;

b) that effective measures to prevent and combat child abuse in the digital space and to remove destructive content and create positive content require multi-stakeholder partnerships involving the private sector, government, and civil society organizations;

supporting the use of existing and the development of technological, managerial, and organizational tools at global, regional, and national levels to protect children in the online environment,

noting existing mechanisms and applications designed to facilitate contact between children and online child protection services, as well as the advisability of their further development,

noting also the need to continue seeking available solutions for child protection in the online environment and to further disseminate them among governments and other stakeholders,

recognizing the requirement for international cooperation and continued application of a participatory approach involving the public and private sectors, academia, and civil society organizations in order to promote social responsibility in the ICT sector so as to effectively make use of the variety of tools available to build confidence in the use of ICT networks and services, reducing the risks for children,

supporting in this context the work of the International Telecommunication Union Council Working Group on Child Online Protection (CWG-COP) and,

noting with satisfaction the submission of contributions for consideration by the CWG-COP by communications administrations and RCC members, specifically the communications administrations of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Belarus, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tajikistan, and the Republic of Uzbekistan, as well as the Alliance for the Protection of Children in the Digital Environment,

1. Recognize that measures to protect children in the digital environment are inextricably linked to, and should contribute to, the protection of the moral and cultural values of society,

2. Reffirm the need for ongoing dialogue between the private sector, the government, and international organizations to join forces in shaping strategies and programs for child protection in the digital environment at national, regional, and international levels,

3. Encourage the sharing of best practices and the subsequent establishment of stakeholder networks comprising responsible actors to safeguard children in the digital environment, either at the national or regional level, in order to build and strengthen a secure online space conducive to children’s creative and professional growth,

4. Reaffirm the need to continuously improve technological solutions for creating a digital ecosystem that is safe for children (such as child-safe modes offered by telecom operators and search engines, parental control systems, etc.) and for generating positive, educational content; we further emphasize the importance of social networks, video hosting platforms, and search engines monitoring and managing their own platforms and restricting children's access to information that could harm their health and development,

5. Reaffirm further the necessity to continuously enhance technological solutions aimed at building a child‑safe digital ecosystem (child modes provided by telecom operators and search engines, as well as parental control systems) and to promote the creation of positive and educational content, as well as the importance of self‑monitoring and oversight by social media platforms, video hosting services, and search engines over their content, as well as the implementation of measures to restrict children’s access to information detrimental to their health and development,

6. Reiterate also the need to conduct research aimed both at identifying and forecasting threats and at evaluating the effectiveness of measures taken to protect children in the digital environment;