September means back to school. New notebooks, new timetables, new lessons. So this year, we decided to give MEPs some homework of our own. As the European Parliament returned from its summer break, we prepared a back-to-school factsheet for every Member of the European Parliament, bringing together key facts about child sexual abuse online and what is at stake for children as the EU decides how to address it. Then we took them to the Parliament ourselves.
A little back-to-school homework
The idea was simple: put the facts directly in front of the people who will be making decisions that affect children’s safety online. We packed the factsheets into envelopes and distributed them across the Parliament, from offices to corridors, making sure as many MEPs as possible received one. It was a small operation, but an important reminder: behind the political and technical discussions around the EU’s child sexual abuse legislation, there are children. Children who can be targeted by perpetrators online. Children whose abuse can be recorded and shared. And children who need Europe to make their safety a priority.
Keeping children at the centre of the debate
The debate around the EU’s proposed legislation is complex. It involves important questions about privacy, security, technology and fundamental rights. But these questions should not make children disappear from the conversation. Our factsheet brings together evidence on the scale of online child sexual abuse, what children face, and why Europe needs a strong and effective framework to prevent and respond to it.
The homework doesn’t stop at Parliament We wanted the factsheet to reach beyond the MEPs who received it in person. So we’re making the full factsheet available to anyone following the debate — policymakers, journalists, organisations, and anyone who wants to better understand what is at stake.
As discussions on the EU’s future approach to child sexual abuse online continue, we hope it will help keep one thing firmly in view: the children at the heart of this debate. Choose to see them. Focus on the children.
#ChooseToSeeThem
