18 November: Day for the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse - 2024 Edition

Emerging technologies: threats and opportunities for the protection of children from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse

Each year, the Council of Europe invites its partners to focus on a specific topic on the occasion of the 18 November: Day for the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (#EndChildSexualAbuseDay). The theme of the 2024 edition is “Emerging technologies: threats and opportunities for the protection of children from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse.”

Emerging technologies like Artificial intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR) Extended Reality (XR), including the Metaverse, are often being misused for child sexual offences in social media, networking, and online gaming contexts. These technologies increase risks such as solicitation, grooming, exposure to harmful content, and sexual exploitation or sexual abuse of children. In addition, current legislation in Europe does not fully address these issues and the public opinion is not fully sensitise to these dangers coming from a very new environment.

Nonetheless, emerging technologies can also offer opportunities to enhance prevention and protection efforts including through automated detection and reporting of illegal content.

This year’s edition of the #EndChildSexualAbuseDay aims to raise awareness at all levels of society to prevent misuse of the emerging technologies and find innovative ways to take the maximum advantage of them instead. It is crucial to learn from victims’ and survivors’ lived experiences as well as from experts in the field to encourage decision makers to develop effective public policies on the emerging technologies topical issue.

The Council of Europe works with a wide range of partners to mark the Day, including state authorities, international organisations, civil society and private sector. This web page promotes the various initiatives organised by these partners (displayed below under Activities), enabling all to share promising practices.

In line with the Interpretative opinion on the applicability of the Lanzarote Convention to sexual offences against children facilitated through the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), "existing offences in the Lanzarote Convention remain criminalized, regardless of the means used by sexual offenders, even when ICTs are not specifically mentioned." We can effectively prevent and protect children from sexual abuse through:

Prevention: including the active involvement of the private sector to embed safety measures into tech platforms, content moderation strategies and robust age verification systems to shield children from exposure to harmful content.
Protection: including effective helplines and hotlines for victims,survivors and their families, strengthening cooperation between private entities and law enforcement agencies to swiftly address and remove illegal content.
Prosecution of child sexual exploitation and sexual abuse facilitated by emerging technologies.
Promotion of national and international co-operation through multi-disciplinary and interagency co-operation at national level and effective co-operation at international level by making best use of platforms for co-operation, including through the Lanzarote Committee and Cybercrime Convention Committee of the Parties (T-CY).