What is the status of digital children’s rights?
In this Digital Child Rights Monitor we give insight how the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) addressed digital child rights in its 2022 Concluding Observations on Djibouti. The priority scale reflects how strongly the CRC highlights an issue in its recommendations — the higher the score, the bigger or more pressing the problem. This scale helps visualize which digital child rights issues the CRC considers most urgent and where Djibouti faces its greatest challenges. If a country gets a low urgency score it does not necessarily mean the country is doing good, it just means the CRC made little to no mention to it.
Summary
High priority
Digital Access & Participation (8) emerges as the most prominent priority, with equal emphasis on children with disabilities, the digital divide, e-learning, and IT infrastructure. This highlights broad challenges related to access, inclusion, and participation in digital environments.
Medium priority
Infrastructure & Capacity (6) and Violence & Exploitation Online (6) receive moderate attention. The balanced distribution across cybercrime laws, digitalized systems, and training of professionals suggests a general but not deeply prioritised focus on system development, while equal attention across multiple forms of online harm indicates recognition of diverse risks.
Low priority
Online Safety & Protection (4) receives limited attention, focusing on awareness campaigns and safeguarding policies. Privacy & Data Protection (0) and Digital Health & Well-being (0) are not addressed, indicating gaps in data governance and wellbeing-related issues.
Overview themes
- Digital Access & Participation
- Digital Health & Well-Being
- Infrastructure & Capacity
- Online Safety & Protection
- Privacy & Data Protection
- Violence & Exploitation Online
Digital Access & Participation stands out as the leading theme, reflecting broad challenges in access, inclusion, and infrastructure. Infrastructure & Capacity and Violence & Exploitation Online receive moderate attention, indicating some recognition of both system-level needs and online risks. Online Safety & Protection is present but less developed, with limited focus on prevention and safeguarding. In contrast, Privacy & Data Protection and Digital Health & Well-being are entirely absent, highlighting significant gaps in coverage.
Digital access and participation
- Access for children with disabilities
- Civic participation via digital means
- Digital Divide
- E-learning
- IT Infrastructure
Digital Access & Participation receives high attention (8), with equal focus across children with disabilities, digital divide, e-learning, and IT infrastructure. This indicates a broad recognition of access and inclusion challenges. The balanced distribution suggests that no single issue dominates, but all remain important.
Infrastructure and capacity
- Cybercrime and cybersecurity laws
- Digitalized systems
- Training of professionals on online offences
Infrastructure & Capacity shows moderate priority (6), with equal attention to cybercrime and cybersecurity laws, digitalized systems, and training of professionals. This balanced focus suggests a general awareness of system and capacity needs. However, none of these areas are strongly prioritised individually.
Digital health and wellbeing
Digital Health & Well-being is not addressed (0), with no references to mental health, screen time, or support services. This indicates that children’s digital wellbeing is not currently considered. It highlights a key gap in awareness and policy focus.
Online safety and protection
Online Safety & Protection receives limited attention (4), with focus on awareness campaigns and safeguarding policies and accountability. This indicates some development of protective frameworks. However, the absence of complaint and reporting mechanisms suggests gaps in response systems.
Privacy and data protection
Privacy & Data Protection is not addressed (0), with no references to privacy rights, data protection, or surveillance. This suggests limited visibility into how children’s data is handled. The absence indicates a significant gap in policy attention.
Violence and exploitation
Violence & Exploitation Online receives moderate attention (6), with equal focus on online harassment, online sexual exploitation (CSAM), and trafficking and exploitation. This highlights a range of risks faced by children in digital environments. The even distribution suggests recognition of multiple forms of harm.
Concluding Observations CRC
- “”recommends… Further strengthen awareness-raising campaigns and education programmes, with the involvement of children, to formulate a comprehensive strategy for preventing and combating violence, sexual exploitation and abuse, including in
online settings, against children, paying particular attention to children in street situations and migrant and refugee children”” - “Address inequalities generated by the home schooling necessitated by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis, including by ensuring the availability of computer equipment and sufficient Internet access, giving particular attention to children in rural areas and children with disabilities;”
- “Strengthen the National Institute of Statistics to expeditiously improve its data collection system and ensure that data collected on children’s rights covers all areas of the Convention and the Optional Protocols thereto, with data disaggregated by age, sex, disability, geographical location, ethnic and national origin and socioeconomic background, in order to facilitate analysis of the situation of children, in particular those in situations of vulnerability;”
Djibouti
2022
Digital Child Rights Network
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