The digital world is becoming increasingly unsafe for children and young people. Data from the past year, has prompted child protection organisations to sound an alarm for 2023 as a ‘record year’ for child sexual abuse reports with analysts finding more child sexual imagery than any year previously – more than 275,000 reports -up 8% from the previous year.
New trends emerge, such as financial sexual extortion, while threats like online grooming and child ‘self-generated’ sexual material continue to grow. Additionally, new emerging technologies like generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Extended Reality (ER) pose new risks for the safety of children online.
To combat the growing threats in the digital space, Safe Online launched a global call for proposals in 2023. After a rigorous and thorough selection process, 23 grantees have been selected to receive USD 10 million. The new investment grows Safe Online’s investment portfolio to USD 100 million across 106 projects with impact in 100 countries and accelerates Safe Online’s globally important role as a catalyst for new solutions to combat digital harms.
The investment award projects under a ‘whole system’ approach by supporting work across multiple sectors to achieve maximum impact.
Grantees have been awarded under three different pillars:
Networks and Systems: Projects will strengthen systems, key infrastructure and services and create incentives for action through changing norms, policies and advanced regulation.
Research and data: Projects will create and promote a global evidence base to support the ecosystem, increase alignments of efforts, and maximise their impact.
Technology Tools: Projects will reduce barriers to access to cutting-edge technologies in the online safety space and promote tools that are shareable, adaptable and create efficiencies in online CSEA prevention and response efforts at all levels.
Our grantees UNICEF Uganda Ensuring Children in Uganda Are Safe Online Countries involved:Uganda UNICEF Uganda is using support from the Fund to raise awareness of child sexual exploitation and abuse. The agency is working directly with the Government of Uganda to integrate mechanisms for prevention, reporting and response into the national
Our grantees Save the Children Hong Kong Protecting children from online grooming: Cross-cultural, qualitative and child-centred data to guide grooming prevention and response Countries involved:Hong Kong Grant timeline:March 2023 – September 2024 Grantee website:savethechildren.org.hk/en Funding amount:$198,600 Find other grantees
The objective of this Request for Expressions of Interest (EOI) is to develop a better understanding of the Children Online Protection Laboratory (COPL) community’s priorities, identify ideas and resources and co-construct next steps of the experimentation process.
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We are here to ensure every child and young person grows in to the digital world feeling safe, and is protected from harm.
We support, champion, and invest in innovative partners from the public, private, and third sectors working towards the same objective.
We believe in equipping guardians and young people with the skills to understand and see danger themselves once accessing digital experiences without supervision.
