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 2026 Concluding Observations on Maldives. The urgency 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 Maldives 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
Violence & Exploitation Online (20) emerges as the most pressing priority, with equal emphasis on online harassment, online sexual exploitation (CSAM), trafficking and exploitation, and discriminatory violence. Digital Access & Participation (9), Infrastructure & Capacity (8), and Online Safety & Protection (8) also receive substantial attention, reflecting a broad focus on access, safeguarding, and system-level readiness.
Medium Priority
Privacy & Data Protection (3) and Digital Health & Well-being (2) receive moderate but comparatively limited attention. The focus on artificial intelligence (AI), children’s digital privacy rights, and mental health impacts suggests emerging awareness of data governance and wellbeing concerns.
Low Priority
No themes are entirely absent from the data, though wellbeing and privacy-related issues receive noticeably less attention compared to protection and infrastructure-focused themes.
Overview themes
- Digital Access & Participation
- Digital Health & Well-Being
- Infrastructure & Capacity
- Online Safety & Protection
- Privacy & Data Protection
- Violence & Exploitation Online
Violence & Exploitation Online dominates the landscape, highlighting a broad range of risks affecting children in digital environments. Digital Access & Participation, Infrastructure & Capacity, and Online Safety & Protection also receive strong attention, reflecting a relatively balanced focus on access, systems, and safeguarding. Privacy & Data Protection and Digital Health & Well-being are acknowledged but remain secondary priorities. Overall, the distribution suggests a stronger emphasis on protection and infrastructure than on wellbeing and data rights.
Violence and exploitation
- Trafficking / exploitation through digital platforms
- Discriminatory Violence
- Online Harrasment and Bullying
- Online sexual exploitation / CSAM
Violence & Exploitation Online is the most prominent theme (20), with equal emphasis across discriminatory violence, online harassment, online sexual exploitation (CSAM), and trafficking and exploitation. This highlights a wide range of serious risks faced by children online. The balanced distribution suggests recognition of multiple forms of harm requiring sustained attention.
Digital access and participation
- Children with disabilities
- Civic participation via digital means
- Digital divide
- E-Learning
- IT-infrastructure
Digital Access & Participation receives high attention (9), with emphasis on the digital divide and IT infrastructure, alongside references to civic participation via digital means and e-learning. This indicates recognition of both access and participation challenges. However, the relatively lower score for e-learning suggests uneven prioritisation across subthemes.
Digital health and wellbeing
Digital Health & Well-being receives limited attention (2), focused solely on mental health impacts. This indicates some awareness of the effects of digital environments on children’s wellbeing. However, the absence of support and rehabilitation services suggests a narrow scope.
Online safety and protection
Online Safety & Protection receives high attention (8), driven mainly by awareness campaigns on safe internet use, alongside safeguarding policies and accountability in digital media. This indicates a relatively balanced focus on prevention and protection. However, complaint and reporting mechanisms are not addressed, suggesting gaps in response systems.
Privacy and data protection
Privacy & Data Protection receives limited attention (3), focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and children’s digital privacy rights. This suggests some recognition of emerging technological and privacy concerns. However, the absence of broader data protection and surveillance issues indicates an incomplete approach to data governance.
Infrastructure and capacity
Infrastructure & Capacity receives strong attention (8), with focus on training of professionals, alongside cybercrime and cybersecurity laws and digitalized systems. This suggests recognition of both institutional and technical capacity needs. The stronger emphasis on professional training highlights the importance of human capacity-building.
Concluding Observations CRC
- “The Committee welcomes the State Party’s efforts to address children’s digital literacy and to raise awareness about online child safety. Recalling its general comment No. 25 (2021) on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment and theoint statement of the Committee and other signing parties on artificial intelligence and the rights of the child, the Committee recommends that the State Party:”‘
- “Concerned… The pervasiveness of violence against children, including domestic violence, sexual and gender-based violence, abuse, neglect and online abuse;”
- “Strengthen capacity of law enforcement and social workers to effectively handle cases of online child sexual exploitation, abuse and grooming”
- “Continue to enhance the digital literacy and skills of children, teachers and families, and protect children from information and material harmful to their well-being, including in the context of artificial intelligence”
- “Promote the integration of information related to environmental and social determinants of children’s health and development throughout time, while ensuring data protection.”
- “Ensure the availability of and access to adequate and age-appropriate information on matters related to children’s rights and the environment;””
- “Improve the rates of transition into upper secondary education through initiatives such as flexible learning pathways, modernized vocational training programmes and deployment of digitally enabled learning environments connecting children on remote islands”
- “The Committee notes the introduction of the inclusive education data management system, which allows for the monitoring of inclusive education through a centralized portal. The Committee recommends that the State Party:”
- “The Committee welcomes several positive developments, such as the amendments to the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, the adoption of the National Action Plan on Prevention and Response to Violence against Children (2024–2028), the updated procedure manual on responding to, and the referral pathway for, cases of gender-based violence and domestic violence (2025), the development of minimum standards for service delivery in cases of domestic violence (2024) and the publicly accessible database listing child sex offenders (2023). It is however seriously concerned about.”
Maldives
2026
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