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 2020 Concluding Observations on Rwanda. 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 Rwanda 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
Infrastructure & Capacity (12) stands out as the most pressing priority, accounting for nearly half of the total urgency score. This indicates substantial gaps in system readiness, digital infrastructure, and institutional capacity.
Violence & Exploitation Online (7) also emerges as a high-priority concern, pointing to persistent risks such as online abuse, exploitation, and unsafe digital environments for children. Together, these areas highlight urgent structural and protection-related challenges requiring immediate attention.
Medium priority
Online Safety & Protection (3) receives moderate attention, suggesting that while some measures—such as awareness or safeguarding mechanisms—are being considered, they are not yet sufficiently developed or prioritised.
Digital Access & Participation (2) and Digital Health & Well-being (2) also fall within the medium range, indicating emerging but still limited recognition of issues such as access to digital services, inclusion, and the impact of digital environments on children’s wellbeing.
Low priority
Privacy & Data Protection (0) receives no urgency score, indicating that issues related to data handling, surveillance, and children’s digital privacy are not addressed in the available data.
This absence suggests limited visibility and prioritisation of privacy concerns, pointing to potential gaps in both policy attention and reporting frameworks.
Overview themes
- Digital Access & Participation
- Digital Health & Well-Being
- Infrastructure & Capacity
- Online Safety & Protection
- Privacy & Data Protection
- Violence & Exploitation Online
Infrastructure & Capacity (12) stands out as the most pressing priority, alongside Violence & Exploitation Online (7), both highlighting significant structural gaps and persistent risks for children in digital environments. Online Safety & Protection (3) receives moderate attention, suggesting that while some protective measures are considered, they remain underdeveloped. Digital Access & Participation (2) and Digital Health & Well-being (2) are also identified but with limited emphasis, indicating emerging yet not fully prioritised concerns. In contrast, Privacy & Data Protection (0) is not addressed at all, pointing to a critical gap in attention to children’s data rights and protection.
Infrastructure and Capacity
- Cybercrime and cybersecurity laws
- Digitalized systems
- Training of professionals on online offences
Infrastructure & Capacity is the most prominent theme (12), reflecting substantial gaps in system readiness and institutional capacity. The highest urgency is placed on cybercrime and cybersecurity laws, followed by digitalised systems, while training of professionals receives comparatively less attention. This distribution suggests that while legal frameworks and systems are key concerns, capacity-building efforts remain underdeveloped.
Violence and Exploitation
- Discriminatory Violence
- Online Harrasment and Bullying
- Online sexual exploitation / CSAM
- Trafficking / exploitation through digital platforms
Violence & Exploitation Online emerges as a high-priority theme (7), driven mainly by concerns around online sexual exploitation and CSAM, as well as trafficking and exploitation. These findings highlight significant protection risks for children in digital environments. In contrast, online harassment and discriminatory violence are not mentioned, indicating potential gaps in recognising the full spectrum of online harms.
Digital health and wellbeing
Digital Health & Well-being receives limited attention (2), with focus placed solely on support and rehabilitation services. Other important areas, such as mental health impacts and gaming or online addiction and screen time, are not addressed. This indicates that broader aspects of children’s digital wellbeing remain largely overlooked.
Online safety and protection
Online Safety & Protection shows moderate urgency (3), with attention given to complaint and reporting mechanisms and safeguarding policies and accountability in digital media. However, awareness campaigns on safe internet use are not mentioned. This suggests that while some protective structures are recognised, preventive and educational measures receive less emphasis.
Privacy and data protection
The data indicates no attention to privacy and data protection, with a total urgency score of 0. Key areas such as children’s digital privacy rights, data protection, surveillance and profiling, extraterritorial jurisdiction, and artificial intelligence (AI) are not addressed. This absence suggests limited visibility and prioritisation of how children’s data is collected, used, and safeguarded.
Digital access and participation
The data shows limited attention to digital access and participation, with a modest urgency score (2). Concerns are primarily related to the digital divide and IT infrastructure, indicating barriers to equitable access. Other areas, such as e-learning, access for children with disabilities, and civic participation via digital means, are not addressed, suggesting gaps in ensuring inclusive and meaningful participation for all children.
Concluding Observations CRC
- “The Committee commends the State party for the significant increase in Internet access coverage and the adoption of the child online policy and recommends that the State party continue to expand access to the Internet and to information for children in disadvantaged or vulnerable situations and ensure that children are protected from online risks, including by providing training on the child online policy to relevant stakeholders and putting into place online safety measures.”
- “Establish effective mechanisms, procedures and guidelines for the mandatory reporting of cases of sexual exploitation and abuse in the home, school, institutions and other settings, including online, and ensure the availability of accessible, confidential, child-friendly and effective reporting channels for such violations;”
- “Review whether the existing legislation criminalizes all offences prohibited under the Optional Protocol, including the sale of children for the purpose of the transfer of organs of the child for profit, the online sale and sexual exploitation of children and the production, distribution and possession of child sexual abuse material, and take necessary legislative measures to rectify any discrepancy;”
- “Ensure that remedies are available to child victims of sale, exploitation in prostitution and online sexual exploitation.”
- “Ensure effective coordination between health facilities, civil registrars and notary officers, the digitalization without fees of the registrations of children who were born prior to the availability of e-registration and that all registered children receive birth certificates.”
- ‘The Committee welcomes the establishment, in 2014, of a database on children in vulnerable” situations and recommends that the State party
- “Improve its data-collection system and ensure that it covers all areas of the Convention and the Optional Protocols thereto, with data disaggregated by age, sex, disability, nationality, geographical location, ethnic origin and socioeconomic background, in order to facilitate analysis of the situation of all children, especially in the areas of health, violence, sexual exploitation, child labour, trafficking and child justice, and in particular children in street situations and Batwa children;”
- “To integrate data collection on violence against children into national data-collection systems and ensure the systematic collection of information and data, disaggregated by age, sex, type of violence and relationship between the victim and the perpetrator, on all cases of violence against children in families, schools, institutional care and refugee camps.”
Rwanda
2020
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