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Speech by Bjørn Berge, Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe

[Video display: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0nd1gnj4lo]

That was the voice of Mia Janin.

Her “tomorrow” was her first day back at school after the long covid lockdowns in the UK.

Mia took her own life just one day later.

She was 14 years old.

Mia loved dressing up and makeup, art, cheerleading and playing with her dog.

But she was picked on relentlessly, hounded and bullied online.

According to one child who spoke at the inquest into her death, schoolmates even shared faked nude photographs of Mia.

Mia’s response to months of cyberbullying can never be undone.

Friends,

Children under the age of 18 have never known a life without smartphones.

They have never known a life without social media.

This new world is their world.

The World Health Organisation has reported that one in six young people experiences cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying is often connected to poor performance at school, to self-harm, and to depression.

And it is linked —so tragically — with suicide — an increasing cause of death for young people across Europe.

In fact, at times children are deliberately encouraged to take their own lives.

But cyberbullying is not the only threat facing children in their online world — a world where our children are spending more and more time.

EU research suggests that children between 9 and 15 spend an average of three hours per day on the internet.

That’s the average.

Research shows that the use of screen technology has an impact on children’s brains — on the pre-frontal cortex, which regulates self-control and decision-making, and on the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes emotions and anxiety.

Dear friends,

We all know that constant messages can affect our wellbeing.

But children haven’t learnt how to deal with that pressure.

And they haven’t learnt to deal with the content — with what is real and what is fake —who is a real friend, and who will exploit them or lead them into danger.

Last year, the Global Child Safety Institute, “Childlight”, found that more than 300 million children had been affected by online child sexual exploitation and abuse in the previous 12 months.

This basically means that children are not even safe in their own homes.

They may be preyed on from anywhere — and that makes international collaboration so important in the protection of children online.

That’s why a pan-European strategy such as the Council of Europe’s Strategy for the Rights of the Child, which has as one of its six pillars “access to and safe use of technologies for all children” is extremely important.

And it’s why the Lanzarote Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse is crucial.

And the Committee of Parties to the Lanzarote Convention has adopted a Declaration calling on state parties to strengthen laws protecting children from abuse online, and to increase accountability for those benefiting from the misuse of emerging technologies.

Still, I believe more regulation is certainly necessary, and legislative bodies must be vigilant in staying ahead of technology, and especially artificial intelligence.

Here, the Council of Europe’s Cybercrime Programme Office assists countries worldwide to strengthen their legal system’s capacity to respond to challenges posed by cybercrime and electronic evidence,

Let me also mention the Council of Europe’s Budapest Convention on Cybercrime has 81 parties from all over the world and 14 observer countries.

Any of its parties can join the second additional protocol on enhanced cooperation and disclosure of electronic evidence and I would encourage them to do so.

And the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and human rights, democracy and the rule of law, is the first-ever international legally binding treaty in this field.

In a world where AI exacerbates online child abuse, the Convention obliges parties to ensure that activities within artificial intelligence systems are fully consistent with human rights — including the rights of children.

We are also finalising the HUDERIA Methodology which guides public and private bodies in assessing AI impacts on human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

The methodology minimises or eliminates identified risks, and helps protect the public — including children — from potential harm. 

Dear friends,

We have to work together if we are to succeed.

Because there are no borders to cybercrime, no borders to the internet, and no borders to the immense reach of artificial intelligence.

Abuse, too, defies borders.

And so we must cooperate across borders and across disciplines to regulate, to educate and to hold accountable all who enable and perpetuate the abuse and exploitation of children.

Mia Janin was 14 years old when she hanged herself.

Mia’s father has instigated a campaign for increased action to protect children from cyberbullying.

Speaking on a news program following the inquest into Mia’s death, he said: "It's part of their world, a world that we don't know where the limits are."

But we — the adults, the public, people with influence and power — we are the ones who must put those limits in place — to help protect children.

Because no parent should ever have to experience what Mia’s parents did.

And no child should ever feel the pain, suffering and despair that led Mia to take her own life.