Topic: 2025 – Protecting and Empowering Youth in Digital Spaces
Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Delegate Name: Fiona Rodrigues
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we have over 50 million children. If we do not work together to empower youth in digital spaces, we will not only be endangering the 50 million children of the DRC, but we will be endangering the millions of children all around the world. Child exploitation online has increased dramatically, especially in the realm of AI, with reports involving Generative AI (GAI) technology surging by 1,325% in 2024, rising from 4,700 in 2023 to 67,000 reports in 2024. The UN must work to address this issue affecting the children of all nations.
Reports of these crimes have only been increasing every year; this is a serious issue in need of a serious solution. Our solution would be to work with the children to understand the problem at hand. Instituting a mandatory lecture in all schools, organized by the UN, to inform children on the dangers of the online world and to teach them how to navigate it safely. Without working with our children, we will be left in the dark on how to truly help them. Instituting blanket bans or restrictions on children and their involvement in social media will help absolutely no one. For example, Australia will be instituting a ban on the use of social media in its country for those under 16, but we believe this will not be the most effective way to regulate the use of social media by children. When we ban the entire use of social media, children will go to less regulated sites where these dangers we are trying to prevent will only be more prevalent.
By communicating with students, we will not only be able to inform them in a way we approve of, but we will be able to get feedback from the children and adapt to meet their needs. Addressing all of the dangers and harms that social media brings is a crucial step towards aiding our children. In order to ensure they will stay on heavily regulated sites when using social media, so we can help them and hold the companies accountable, we should institute lectures to children in middle school. Finally, to ensure this system will be well managed, we would send UN employees to oversee the start of this program, where needed. If we ensure that every country implementing this system knows that UN employees will check in occasionally, it will make the nations be responsible for how they handle this issue and the presentations. Countries will hesitate to deviate from the assigned plans as they will be aware of the reprecussions from the UN.
