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Monitor Namibia

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 2024 Concluding Observations on Namibia. 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 Namibia 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 (35) emerges as the most pressing priority, with high scores across online harassment, online sexual exploitation (CSAM), and discriminatory violence, alongside concerns related to trafficking and exploitation. Online Safety & Protection (24) and Infrastructure & Capacity (21) also stand out as high-priority areas, reflecting strong attention to safeguarding frameworks, awareness measures, and underlying systems and legal capacities.

Medium priority

Digital Access & Participation (7) and Digital Health & Well-being (4) receive moderate attention. The focus on IT infrastructure, e-learning, and inclusion aspects suggests ongoing access challenges, while attention to mental health impacts and support services indicates growing recognition of wellbeing concerns.

Low urgency

Privacy & Data Protection (2) receives limited attention, focused only on children’s digital privacy rights. This suggests a narrow scope and limited prioritisation of broader data governance issues.

Overview themes

  1. Digital Access & Participation
  2. Digital Health & Well-Being
  3. Infrastructure & Capacity
  4. Online Safety & Protection
  5. Privacy & Data Protection
  6. Violence & Exploitation Online

Violence & Exploitation Online dominates the landscape, highlighting a wide range of risks affecting children in digital environments. Online Safety & Protection and Infrastructure & Capacity also receive substantial attention, reflecting a strong focus on both protective frameworks and system-level readiness. Digital Access & Participation and Digital Health & Well-being are acknowledged but with comparatively lower priority. Privacy & Data Protection remains underdeveloped, indicating a gap in attention to children’s data rights.

Violence and exploitation

  1. Discriminatory Violence
  2. Online Harrasment and Bullying
  3. Online sexual exploitation / CSAM
  4. Trafficking / exploitation through digital platforms

Violence & Exploitation Online is the most prominent theme (35), with high attention across online harassment, online sexual exploitation (CSAM), discriminatory violence, and trafficking and exploitation. This highlights a broad and serious range of risks faced by children. The distribution suggests strong recognition of multiple forms of harm requiring urgent action.

Online Safety and Protection

  1. Awareness campaigns on safe internet use
  2. Complaint & Reporting mechanisms
  3. Safeguarding policies and accountability in digital media

Online Safety & Protection receives high priority (24), with strong emphasis on safeguarding policies and accountability, alongside attention to awareness campaigns and complaint and reporting mechanisms. This indicates a comprehensive approach to both prevention and response. The relatively high scores suggest these mechanisms are a key focus area.

Digital health and wellbeing

Digital Health & Well-being shows moderate priority (4), with attention to both mental health impacts and support and rehabilitation services. This indicates growing awareness of the effects of digital environments on children’s wellbeing. However, the relatively low score suggests this remains a secondary concern.

Infrastructure and capacity

Infrastructure & Capacity is a high-priority theme (21), with strong emphasis on cybercrime and cybersecurity laws, training of professionals, and digitalized systems. This reflects substantial attention to both legal frameworks and institutional capacity. The distribution suggests a relatively balanced focus across system strengthening components.

Privacy and data protection

Privacy & Data Protection receives limited attention (2), focused solely on children’s digital privacy rights. Other areas, such as data protection practices, surveillance, and AI, are not addressed. This indicates a narrow and underdeveloped approach to data governance.

Digital access and participation

Digital Access & Participation receives moderate attention (7), with emphasis on IT infrastructure, e-learning, and to a lesser extent digital divide and children with disabilities. This suggests ongoing challenges in ensuring equitable access. The distribution indicates some recognition of inclusion, though not strongly prioritised.

Concluding Observations CRC

  1. “Raise awareness and widely disseminate information about existing mechanisms for reporting violations, violence and abuse, including the child helpline and the portal for reporting online violence, and provide sustainable funding for such services to ensure that they are accessible, confidential, child-friendly and effective;”
  2. Improve digital inclusion for children in disadvantaged situations and promote the equitability and affordability of online services and connectivity;”
  3. “Adopt the data protection bill and ensure that laws and policies on the digital environment respect children’s privacy and protect them from harmful content and online risks;”
  4. “To further strengthen the legal framework on violence against children by expeditiously adopting the cybercrime and sexual exploitation bills, aligning existing legislation regarding online sexual exploitation and abuse with international standards and amending the Combating of Domestic Violence Act with gender-neutral language;”
  5. “To prevent and eliminate violence against children online by, inter alia: (i) ensuring that national legal and policy frameworks clearly define and criminalize online grooming and adequately cover all forms of online violence; (ii) establishing a legal framework for regulating digital service providers and requiring Internet service providers to promptly block and remove online sexual abuse material; (iii) developing and promoting child-friendly reporting mechanisms, in partnership with the digital business sector, for reporting online violence; and (iv) integrating specific components on online offences into the training of relevant professionals, particularly law enforcement officials and those working in specialized units, so they have the necessary tools to investigate and prosecute cases;”
  6. “To strengthen awareness-raising campaigns about the harmful impact of violence, including online violence, on the physical and psychological well-being of the child”
  7. “Develop regulations and safeguarding policies to protect the rights and safety of children in the digital environment;”
  8. Enhance the digital literacy, awareness and skills of children, parents, caregivers and teachers, including by incorporating digital literacy into school curricula and developing age-appropriate programmes.”
  9. “To promptly and effectively investigate and intervene in all cases of violence against children, including domestic violence and the sexual abuse and exploitation of children in and outside the home, in the digital environment and in educational and alternative care settings, and ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice;”
  10. “To take targeted measures to eliminate bullying, cyberbullying and other forms of violence in schools, and ensure that such measures encompass prevention, early detection mechanisms, intervention protocols, psychosocial support for victims, mandatory training for teachers, recording and monitoring of bullying behaviour and raising awareness of the harmful effects of bullying;”
  11. “Strengthen its national data collection system on children to allow for the sufficient and regular monitoring and analysis of the situation of children, including by addressing data gaps, standardizing mechanisms and platforms for data-sharing and improving the collection, quality and analysis of disaggregated data on children in disadvantaged situations;”
  12. “The Committee notes with appreciation the digitalization of birth registration but is concerned about barriers faced by children in disadvantaged situations. The Committee recommends that the State party:”









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Namibia
2024

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