The 2023 edition of this UN Human Rights Council’s annual event will take place on March 10 in Geneva and discuss the implications of applying a children’s rights perspective with respect to digital tools and technologies.

On March 10, The Palace of Nations in Geneva, home of the United Nations Office, will host the 2023 edition of UN Human Rights Council’s Annual Day on the Rights of the Child (ADRC), where States, United Nations representatives, children and more will meet to discuss challenges and opportunities concerning children’s rights in a growingly digital society.

The ADRC is a yearly event that seeks to generate meaningful exchanges between different stakeholders in order to advance the full realization of children’s rights. For the 2023 edition of the event, the chosen theme is children’s rights and the digital environment, as an answer to the growing usage of digital technologies by children and the impact those technologies can have on the fulfillment of their rights.

The full-day meeting will be divided into two panels. In the first session, children will have the opportunity to discuss challenges and opportunities for the full exercise of their rights in the digital environment with Mr. Volker Türk, UN’s current High Commissioner for Human Rights. In the second panel, experts will debate ways of strengthening legal and policy frameworks for upholding children’s rights in the digital environment, informed by the discussions conducted in the first session.

The discussions aim to improve understanding of the barriers to realizing children’s rights in the digital environment, and the implications of applying child rights principles to ensure that children can be empowered and protected online, particularly with the support of strengthened legal and policy frameworks for accountability in this regard.

The Child Rights Connect Taskforce on child rights and the digital environment has developed a joint position paper with key priority issues to inform the discussions at the Annual Full-Day Meeting on the Rights of the Child, the upcoming UN General Assembly resolution on the rights of the child on the same theme, and the Global Digital Compact.  Check it out here!

Both panels of the ADRC will be webcast and can be accessed at:  https://media.un.org/en/webtv.