Türkiye holds a digital safety panel for children at the UN

Türkiye leads a digital child safety panel at UN headquarters

Türkiye’s Ministry of Family and Social Services held a panel at UN headquarters on safe digital systems for children. The panel was organized in cooperation with UNICEF and the Office of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children.

Scraper SystemSeptember 22, 2026, 03:15 PM

Türkiye leads a digital child safety panel at UN headquarters

Under the patronage of Emine Erdoğan, wife of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Ministry of Family and Social Services held an international panel on children’s digital safety at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

The event, titled “The Invisible Architecture: Building Safe Digital Systems for Children, Advancing International Standards and Shared Responsibility,” was organized in cooperation with UNICEF and the Office of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children.

The impact of artificial intelligence and digital platforms on children was discussed

Opening the panel, Queen Mathilde of Belgium said that the rapid development of artificial intelligence and digital technologies was bringing new risks for children. Mathilde emphasized that child safety should not be limited to parental supervision or data protection, but should be treated as a fundamental element from the design stage of digital systems.

The spouses of leaders who attended the event also emphasized the need for stronger cooperation among countries against threats such as online abuse, cyberbullying, privacy violations and harmful content.

Call for global standards and shared responsibility

The panel highlighted the view that protecting children cannot be achieved solely through national regulations because digital platforms operate across borders. It emphasized the need for governments, technology companies, educators, families and civil society to act together.

Sheema Sen Gupta, UNICEF’s Director of Child Protection, said Türkiye had taken a leading role in bringing children’s online safety to the forefront of the global agenda, adding that protecting children in the digital environment was a global responsibility.

Najat Maalla M’jid, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children, said that in addition to governments, the private sector and other actors in the online ecosystem must also assume responsibility for protecting children in the digital environment.

The panel also called for the creation of accessible mechanisms through which children can report harm they experience online and receive rapid support, as well as the development of common international standards among countries.