Delegation from Estonia

Position Paper for the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund

The topics before the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund are: Fostering Digital
Civic Engagement by Young People and Providing Violence Response and Access to Justice for
Children and Youth. The Republic of Estonia aims to ensure compliance with the rights of children and
youth in order to safeguard present and forthcoming generations.

I. Fostering Digital Civic Engagement by Young People

Young people have redefined civic engagement by partaking in societal interaction through virtual
spaces, leading to a more inclusive exchange of ideas on the issues that concern them as citizens of
their Member States, albeit not without new issues to address and challenges posed by this medium
of civic engagement. Today, 58% of the world's total population are Internet users, and 1.3 billion of
them are Children and Young people. Nonetheless, the fact remains that inequality in access to the
digital world is still one of the main issues in terms of digital civic engagement. Only 24% of the
population in Africa has access to the Internet, in contrast to the 80% evidenced in Europe. Moreover,
systematic challenges to digital freedom of speech pose a threat to the continued usage of new
mediums to debate public affairs. Freedom House reports that 71% of people who have access to the
Internet have been arrested for posting content on political, social, or religious issues since June
2018, mainly in the 21 countries categorized as Not Free in their official Internet Freedom Score.
Additionally, a survey conducted in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) between 2020 and 2021 indicates
that 46% of the population identified online harassment of civic actors as an important obstacle for
youth participation, while 57% felt insecure with the current data protection levels, privacy and
cybersecurity. These are just part of more issues that concern and threaten young activists. Distrust in
digital media now obstructs civic participation opportunities offered by virtual platforms in the ongoing
technological era.

During the past decade, young people have turned to online media as a tool to participate in the
public discussion of complex affairs related to politics, democracy, human rights, et al. This rise of
digital spaces as public forums for debate has given them the opportunity to produce civic
engagement online in ways not available to them before, helping young individuals to participate
within, design, create and fund campaigns and civic projects such as the Sunrise Movement or the
Black Lives Matter Movement, interacting with the world around them and working together to create
positive change. As such, the Republic of Estonia has taken significant measures in order to protect
the global youth and give them the opportunity to develop themselves in the digital era. Between 2002
and 2003, The Media and the Rights of the Child Project of the International Union for Child Welfare
(IUCW) were carried out in cooperation with the United Nations International Children’s Emergency
Fund (UNICEF) Estonia and the Baltic American Partnership Program of the Open Estonia
Foundation, with the purpose of evaluating the safety of the media consumed by kids. In regional
terms, Estonia has contributed to the establishment of the Baltic Internet Policy Initiative, a
non-governmental organization that advances projects in the Baltic region to uphold democracy and
citizen participation in direct collaboration with the European Union. Within Estonian borders, The
Open Estonia Foundation is also responsible for the ProgeTiger Programme, a national strategy to
teach children and youth people from ages 7 to 19 years old how to code, and since 2015, digital
learning has been promoted with the digitization of textbooks on behalf of the Ministry of Education
and Research, providing students with a needs-based support system. Additionally, gradual reforms
to the Estonian penal code were made between 2012 and 2017 to define a legal framework for civic
engagement in digital platforms, ensuring both security and freedom.

The Republic of Estonia understands that the creation of content in media can help young people feel
informed, empowered and represented within civic spaces. Therefore, by studying and monitoring
their creation habits on social media the international community can produce knowledge on the
functionality of online platforms as boosters of political and public engagement for civil society.
Additionally, Estonia considers that developing and applying technology-oriented solutions as the
main form of protection for youth within cyberspace should constitute a top priority when discussing
online civic engagement. In that sense, Estonia proposes the Data Incentive Programme (DIP) to
promote transparency in data management as a way to increase confidence in online engagement
platforms, by providing financial aid as an incentive for clearer data management. In the same order
of ideas, Estonia suggests the creation of the Civic Engagement Agenda (CEA), an instrument geared
towards highlighting fundamental issues whose discussion has to be promoted for better civic
participation among youth, which Estonia considers can be fostered through the Global Participation
Network, a proposed online platform for the exchange of relevant ideas on civil affairs. Civic
engagement in current times demands the proper inclusion of young people, which can only be
achieved through transparency and commitment.

II. Providing Violence Response and Access to Justice for Children and Youth

Every year, millions of children are in contact with the justice system as a product of different reasons
such as violence, exploitation, and abuse. Those human rights violations have been, in several
countries, endured by children and youth for decades alongside other abuses like human trafficking,
torture, inequality, and so forth. Between 2005 and 2020, at least 14.900 children were denied
humanitarian access, 80% of these occurrences verified from 2016 to 2020. Children’s lack of access
to justice systems is a problem that has not only been left unsolved, moreover, it also affects the
development of future new policies that could protect children as a vulnerable group from a range of
threats such as a violence in the context of schooling, conflict and home. At the beginning of 2020,
160 million children around the world were also subjected to child labor, and through the past 15
years, at least 14.200 children were raped, sexually exploited, and forced into marriage. Additionally,
1.5 billion students out of schools for the COVID-19 pandemic are vulnerable to economic insecurity,
teenage pregnancy, amongst others according to the Human Rights Watch (HRW) for 2020. Another
9 million children are at risk of suffering this kind of exploitation due to the impact of the spread of the
virus. In the meantime, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that 22,000 child
laborers die at work every year, and according to the United Nations (UN) in 2020, 26,425 grave
violations against children were recorded, yet the judicial systems currently cannot ensure fair
procedures in these cases.

Around the world, states and civil organizations have implemented different ways to protect children
and support them in the process of response in situations of violence. By way of illustration,
Humanium is a Non-governmental organization (NGO) that offers a legal Helpline for assistance to
children who have suffered violence and rights violations. The NGO also invests its efforts in providing
the victims with efficient solutions. At the same time, in the region of Europe and Central Asia (ECA),
in 2020 it hosted a conference that gathered experts from 21 countries to discuss the protection of the
right to access to justice for children and youth. Certain that adequate access to effective justice
systems constitutes the next step towards safeguarding children and youth as a vulnerable group, the
Republic of Estonia has implemented different measures intended to fulfill this purpose.
Internationally, Estonia is a signatory of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
since 1991 and has contributed to the United Nations Study on Violence Against Children conducted
in 2006 by answering and delivering a questionnaire on the situation of Estonian children to the
General Assembly, to disclose data concerning the legal framework and the status of youth within
Estonian borders. In the Baltic Region, Estonia has representation in the Council of the Baltic Sea
States (CBSS) Expert Group on Children at Risk, which provides policy guidance to its Member
States to act on the handling of the vulnerability of children and youth. At a national level, the Estonian
Students Committees Union has promoted the creation of autonomous governance bodies in schools
since 2003 and supported different protection programs in education centers, such as the School
Guard. Moreover, the Tartu Children’s Support Centre conducts the Child Assault Prevention Program
(CAP), alongside different training programs concerning violence against children, as reforms to the
penal code were made to address human trafficking, child labor, and pornography involving minors,
notably the adoption of the Child Protection Act.

Children should be enabled to have adequate and timely access to information on how to access the
justice system as a means of safeguarding their rights and demanding adequate compensation for
offenses they have suffered. In order to accomplish this, the Republic of Estonia supports the use of
technology as an educational tool to inform children on their basic rights, as well as provide them with
safe, plausible strategies to act and denounce irregularities within their lives at a systemic level.
Furthermore, to propitiate legal adjustments that favor this sector of the population, Estonia considers
the creation of transparency mechanisms to properly understand and address violence on children
and youth a top priority. With that in mind, Estonia proposes the creation of the Children Vulnerability
Index (CVI) with the guidance of a working group within UNICEF tasked with the elaboration of a
report to be published yearly alongside the CVI containing guidelines with appropriate measures
against scenarios where children and youth are vulnerable to violence. Furthermore, Estonia
considers that the organization of international summits and forums for the denunciation of unfair
judicial treatment could uphold the importance of the rights of young people, and strongly favors them.
For the advancement of the rights of children and youth, on which the future of the world and the
existence of public institutions lies today, the nations of the world should delay no longer.