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“Children love much of what the digital world has to offer, but often, they do not feel safe online. They want to explore, play, learn, and grow, but they are consistently troubled by unwanted contact from strangers, disturbing content, and constant commercial pressure and manipulation that lead to harms such as addictions, eating disorders, harassment, self-harm, and sexual abuse. 5Rights works to build the digital worlds that children and young people deserve. This must start with ensuring that children’s rights are implemented online as well as offline.”
– Leanda Barrington-Leach, Executive Director, 5Rights Foundation
In a significant step towards protecting children in the digital age, the 5Rights Foundation, with funding support from Safe Online, developed and launched the Global Child Online Safety Toolkit. Targeted towards policymakers and practitioners, the Toolkit, launched in 2022, outlines the essential steps required to establish cultural, technical, and legal conditions that ensure the protection of children online. The toolkit aims to bridge knowledge gaps, providing roadmaps, signposts, and good practices to build a digital world that supports children and enables them to flourish.
One of the driving forces behind this transformative initiative is the generous funding from Safe Online, a committed advocate for online safety. The grant provided by Safe Online to the 5Rights Foundation enabled the success of the project, highlighting the importance of collaborative efforts in addressing the challenges of child online protection.
The Global Policy Toolkit followed on the heels of an earlier successful collaboration between Safe Online and the 5Rights Foundation in Rwanda and served as a blueprint for the Toolkit. The child online protection policy and implementation plan developed in partnership with the University of East London laid the groundwork for a comprehensive strategy that gained governmental approval in Rwanda. This success story reinforced the belief that concerted efforts, backed by strong policies, make a tangible impact on child online protection.
The process for developing the Global Child Online Safety Toolkit encompassed country-level consultations in Albania, Ghana, Jordan, Peru, and Vietnam. These nations were chosen strategically due to Safe Online’s investments aimed at combating online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
“It was developed together with experts and children from around the world and endorsed by a wide range of global leaders and practitioners,” says Leanda Barrington-Leach, highlighting the extensive process aimed at ensuring the Toolkit’s universal applicability and celebration of diverse voices.
At the core of the Global Policy Toolkit lies the Model National Response (MNR), providing countries with a framework that synthesises cultural, technical, and legal elements to create a holistic approach to child online protection. The toolkit builds on international agreements including the MNR and includes international best practices serving as a guide for nations seeking to fortify their defences against the rising tide of online threats targeting children. The toolkit offers guidance to governments and organisations worldwide on ten key policy areas, covering legal frameworks, business practices, child rights, response systems, education, and global cooperation, among others. It includes clear instructions for shaping policies and provides a range of resources and tools that can be adopted as-is or customised to fit local contexts. This resource empowers policymakers to develop, assess, or enhance their approaches to children’s rights in the digital realm, offering a standard policy template for online child safety that can be tailored for specific needs.
By addressing knowledge gaps and providing concrete examples of successful implementation, the 5Rights Foundation aims to empower nations to adopt proactive measures.
“Today, the Child Online Safety Toolkit is a foundational resource for policymakers and advocates alike from around the world. Its footprint can be seen in many critical places – from the latest UN General Assembly resolution on children to the world-leading child online safety and empowerment policy that the African Union adopted in February 2024.”
– Leanda Barrington-Leach
“Today, the Child Online Safety Toolkit is a foundational resource for policymakers and advocates alike from around the world. Its footprint can be seen in many critical places – from the latest UN General Assembly resolution on children to the world-leading child online safety and empowerment policy that the African Union adopted in February 2024,” shares Leanda Barrington-Leach.
As the 5Rights Foundation spearheads the creation of the Global Policy Handbook, the project signals a turning point in the global fight against online threats to children. With Safe Online’s support, this initiative is set to shape policies, influence practices, and create a safer digital world for the children – for the futures – of our society. The collective efforts of the 5Rights Foundation and Safe Online are poised to make a lasting impact on child online protection worldwide.
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