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An open letter to the world's children

viii reasons why I'm worried, and hopeful, about the side by side generation.

Dear children of today and of tomorrow,

Thirty years agone, confronting the backdrop of a changing world gild – the autumn of the Berlin Wall, the reject of apartheid, the nativity of the world wide web – the earth united in defence of children and childhood. While most of the world's parents at the time had grown up nether dictatorships or failing governments, they hoped for better lives, greater opportunities and more than rights for their children. Then, when leaders came together in 1989 in a moment of rare global unity to make a historic commitment to the world's children to protect and fulfil their rights, there was a real sense of hope for the adjacent generation.

So how much progress take we fabricated? In the three decades post-obit the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in spite of an exploding global population, we have reduced the number of children missing out on master school by almost 40 per cent. The number of stunted children under 5 years of age dropped by over 100 million. Three decades ago, polio paralyzed or killed almost 1,000 children every mean solar day. Today, 99 per cent of those cases take been eliminated. Many of the interventions behind this progress – such every bit vaccines, oral rehydration salts and ameliorate diet – have been practical and cost-constructive. The ascent of digital and mobile technology and other innovations have made it easier and more efficient to deliver critical services in difficult-to reach communities and to expand opportunities.

Yet poverty, inequality, bigotry and distance continue to deny millions of children their rights every year, as xv,000 children under 5 withal dice every twenty-four hour period, generally from treatable diseases and other preventable causes. We are facing an alarming rise in overweight children, only also girls suffering from anaemia. The stubborn challenges of open defecation and kid marriage continue to threaten children's health and futures. Whilst the numbers of children in school are college than ever, the claiming of achieving quality education is non beingness met. Being in school is not the aforementioned as learning; more than than 60 per cent of primary schoolhouse children in developing countries all the same fail to achieve minimum proficiency in learning and one-half the world's teens face violence in and effectually school, and then information technology doesn't feel like a place of safety. Conflicts go on to deny children the protection, health and futures they deserve. The listing of ongoing child rights challenges is long.

And your generation, the children of today, are facing a new set of challenges and global shifts that were unimaginable to your parents. Our climate is changing beyond recognition. Inequality is deepening. Applied science is transforming how nosotros perceive the world. And more families are migrating than ever earlier. Childhood has changed, and we need to change our approaches along with it.

So, as we look back on xxx years of the Convention on the Rights of the Kid, we should also look ahead, to the next 30 years. We must mind to you – today's children and immature people – about the issues of greatest business organisation to you now and begin working with you on twenty-outset century solutions to 20-first century problems.

With that in mind, here are 8 reasons why I'm worried for your future, and eight reasons why I think in that location is hope:

Why I'yard worried:

It sounds obvious that all children demand these basics to sustain salubrious lives – a clean environment to live in, clean air to exhale, water to drink and food to swallow – and information technology sounds foreign to be making this bespeak in 2019. Yet climate change has the potential to undermine all of these basic rights and indeed almost of the gains fabricated in child survival and development over the past 30 years. There is perhaps no greater threat facing the rights of the next generation of children.

The Food and Agriculture System noted last twelvemonth that climate change is becoming a key forcefulness behind the recent continued ascension in global hunger, and as escalating droughts and flooding degrade food product, the next generation of children will comport the greatest burden of hunger and malnutrition. We are already seeing evidence of extreme weather events driven by climate change creating more frequent and more than destructive natural disasters, and while future forecasts vary, according to the International System for Migration, the near oftentimes cited number of environmental migrants expected worldwide by 2050 is 200 million, with estimates as high as i billion.

As temperatures increase and h2o becomes scarcer it is children who will feel the deadliest impact of waterborne diseases. Today, more than one-half a billion children live in areas with extremely high flood occurrence and most 160 one thousand thousand in loftier-drought severity zones. Regions like the Sahel, which are especially reliant on agriculture, grazing and line-fishing, are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In this arid region, rains are projected to get even shorter and less predictable in the hereafter, and alarmingly, the region is warming up at a rate i and a half times faster than the global average. In the Sahel, the climate gets hotter and the poor become poorer, and information technology is all too common for armed groups to exploit the social grievances that ascend nether such pressurized conditions.

These challenges volition simply be compounded by the impact of air pollution, toxic waste matter and groundwater pollution damaging children's health. In 2017 approximately 300 million children were living in areas with the most toxic levels of outdoor air pollution – six or more times higher than international guidelines, and it contributes to the deaths of around 600,000 children under the historic period of five. Fifty-fifty more than will endure lasting damage to their developing brains and lungs.

And, by 2040, i in four children will live in areas of extreme water stress and thousands volition be made sick past polluted h2o. The management and protection of make clean, plentiful, accessible groundwater supplies, and the management of plastic waste are very fast becoming defining kid wellness issues for our fourth dimension.

Why at that place is hope:

To mitigate climate change, governments and business organization must piece of work together to tackle the root causes by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement. Meanwhile, we must requite the highest priority to efforts to detect adaptations that reduce environmental impacts on children.

UNICEF works to curb the impact of extreme weather events including by designing water systems that can withstand cyclones and saltwater contamination; strengthening school structures and supporting preparedness drills; and supporting community health systems. Innovations such as Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) schemes – if deployed at calibration – could preserve reservoirs of clean water to protect millions of children from the dangers of h2o scarcity and disease.

Even in complex environments like the Sahel, there is hope – information technology has a immature population, hungry for work and opportunity, and the climate offers vast potential for harnessing renewable, sustainable energy sources. With investment in education and employment opportunities, improved security and governance, there is every reason to feel optimism for the region'due south ability to develop climate change resilience and accommodation.

To plow the tide on air pollution, governments and business must work hand in hand to reduce fossil fuel consumption, develop cleaner agronomical, industrial and transport systems and invest in scaling renewable energy sources. Many governments have taken action to adjourn pollution from power plants, industrial facilities and road vehicles with strict regulations. A 2011 study by the Us Environmental Protection Agency establish that the state'due south 1990 Make clean Air Act had delivered Usa$30 of health benefits to citizens for every US$one spent. Such policies hold the key to protecting little lungs and babies' brains from damaging airborne pollutants and particulate matter.

In the meantime, it is vital that we search for solutions that can ameliorate the worst furnishings of air pollution on child health. Mongolia'southward uppercase city Ulaanbaatar has among the well-nigh polluted air in the world during winter. The biggest source of pollution comes from coal-burning used by 60 per cent of Ulaanbaatar'southward population. UNICEF innovation experts together with the community, government, academia and the private sector take begun to blueprint and implement energy efficiency solutions for traditional homes to reduce coal consumption and improve air quality, including by designing "the 21st Century Ger".

And we are finding ways to recycle and reuse plastics in innovative ways as well, reducing toxic waste and putting rubbish to good use. Conceptos Plasticos, a Colombian social enterprise, has adult a technique to make bricks out of non-PVC plastics that are cheaper, lighter and more durable than conventional bricks – and is using them to build classrooms. Africa'southward start recycled plastic classroom was built before this year in Côte d'Ivoire, in just a few weeks. It cost 30 per cent less than traditional classrooms. This innovative approach of transforming plastic waste into construction bricks has the potential to turn a plastic waste management challenge into an opportunity, past addressing the right to an instruction with the construction of schools, empowering these communities and cleaning upward the surroundings at the same fourth dimension.

Why I'm worried:

Children take always been the first victims of war. Today, the number of countries experiencing conflict is the highest information technology has ever been since the adoption of the Child Rights Convention in 1989. One in four children now live in countries afflicted past violent fighting or disaster, with 28 one thousand thousand children driven from their homes by wars and insecurity. Many lose several years of school – besides as records of achievements and qualifications for future learning and careers. Conflicts and natural disasters take already disrupted learning for 75 million children and immature people, many of whom have migrated beyond borders or been displaced. That is a personal tragedy for every single kid. To carelessness the aspirations of a whole generation is a terrible waste of human potential. Worse, creating a lost, disillusioned and angry generation of uneducated children is a dangerous risk that could price us all.

Why there is promise:

Some states take demonstrated effective policies to keep refugees learning. When large numbers of children escaping the war in the Syrian Arab Republic arrived in Lebanon, the regime faced the challenge of all-around hundreds of thousands of children in a public-school system already under strain. With the support of international partners, they turned that claiming into an opportunity and integrated refugee children into schools while strengthening the education system for Lebanese students at the aforementioned time.

And digital innovations can help us do more. UNICEF is collaborating with Microsoft and the University of Cambridge to develop a 'learning passport' – a digital platform that will facilitate learning opportunities for children and young people within and across borders. The learning passport is being tested and piloted in countries hosting refugees, migrants and internally displaced persons. A digitally inclusive world should let young people, no thing their state of affairs, to become access to education. Scaling upwardly solutions like the digital learning passport could assistance millions of displaced children gain the skills they need to thrive.

Why I'm worried:

If we believed everything nosotros read about teenagers today, and the images portrayed in television and movie, we could be forgiven for thinking they are a wild, antisocial bunch. Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. The evidence really shows that teens today smoke less, drink less, get into less trouble and generally have fewer risks than previous generations. You might fifty-fifty telephone call them Generation Sensible.

Still there is one area of take chances for adolescents showing an extremely worrisome trend in the wrong management – i that reminds us of the invisible vulnerability that young people still carry inside of them. Mental wellness disorders among under 18s have been rising steadily over the by 30 years and depression is now amongst the leading causes of disability in the immature. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 62,000 adolescents died in 2016 considering of self-harm, which is now the third leading crusade of death for adolescents aged fifteen –nineteen.

This is not just a rich country problem – WHO estimates that more ninety per cent of adolescent suicides in 2016 were in low or middle-income countries. And while young people with severe mental disorders in lower-income countries frequently miss out on treatment and back up, in that location is no country in the world that tin claim to have conquered this challenge. To quote the WHO's mental health expert Shekhar Saxena, "when information technology comes to mental health, all countries are developing countries." With nearly low-income and middle-income countries spending less than 1 per cent of their total health upkeep on mental health, and high-income countries just 4–5 per cent, information technology is articulate that it needs greater priority around the globe.

UNICEF works with children who have suffered unthinkable traumas, gender discrimination, farthermost poverty, sexual violence, disability and chronic illness, living through conflict and other experiences that identify them at high risk of mental distress. The toll is non just personal, it is societal – the World Economic Forum consistently ranks mental health as having 1 of the greatest economical burdens of whatever not-communicable wellness effect. Despite this overwhelming evidence of a looming crisis and the alarming trends in rise self-impairment and suicide rates, boyish mental health and well-being take often been overlooked in global health programming.

Why there is hope:

With half of lifetime mental wellness disorders starting earlier age 14, age-appropriate mental health promotion, prevention and therapeutic treatment and rehabilitation must be prioritized. Early on detection and handling are fundamental to preventing episodes of mental distress reaching a crunch point and precious immature lives beingness damaged and lost. But all too often, what stands in the mode of young people seeking help at an early stage is the ongoing stigma and taboo that prevents communities talking openly about mental wellness problems. Fortunately, this taboo is start to fall, and young people, once over again, are leading the way – founding non-governmental organizations, developing apps, raising awareness, and being vocal nearly their ain struggles with mental illness and their efforts to address their condition, in hope that others feel empowered to exercise the same.

UNICEF uses campaigns in schools to promote open discussion well-nigh mental health. For case, in Kazakhstan, which has one of the highest suicide rates among adolescents worldwide, UNICEF stepped up efforts to improve the mental well-beingness of adolescents through a large-scale pilot programme in over 450 schools. The programme raised awareness, trained staff to identify high-risk cases, and ensured referral of vulnerable adolescents to health specialists. Nearly 50,000 immature people participated in the airplane pilot with many pregnant improvements in well-being. The programme has since been scaled up to over 3,000 schools.

The prioritization of adolescent mental health promotion and suicide prevention has resulted in a 51 per cent decrease of self-injury mortality in the 15 –17 years age grouping at the national level and the number of suicide cases decreased from 212 in 2013 to 104 in 2018 for this age group. And maybe most chiefly, mental health is now being integrated into mainstream master health care services, helping to overcome the stigma which oftentimes puts young people off from seeking help.

Why I'm worried:

Migration has been part of the human experience throughout history. For thousands of years, children and families have left their identify of nascency to settle in new communities in search of educational or employment opportunities. Today is no different. We live in a mobile earth in which at least thirty million children take moved across borders.

For many, migration is propelled by a bulldoze for a amend life. But for as well many children, migration is non a positive selection but an urgent necessity – they simply do non accept the opportunity to build a safe, healthy and prosperous life in the place they are built-in. When migration is driven by desperation, it tin can atomic number 82 to children migrating without the legal permissions they demand, becoming then-called 'irregular migrants'. They frequently take perilous journeys across deserts, oceans and armed borders, encountering violence, abuse and exploitation on the mode.

And one of the greatest migrations the world has ever seen is happening not across borders, merely within borders, with millions migrating internally from rural to urban areas. In 1989, when the Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted, the bulk of the world'south children lived in rural areas. Today the majority live in cities, and the urbanization rate is ready to grow. Though urban residents on average enjoy better admission to services and opportunities, inequalities can be then large that many of the almost disadvantaged children in urban areas fare worse than children in rural areas. For instance, the poorest urban children in 1 in 4 countries are more probable to dice before their fifth altogether than the poorest children in rural areas. And the poorest urban children in 1 in 6 countries are less likely to complete primary school than rural children.

Why in that location is hope:

No child should feel forced to migrate from their home, yet until the root causes are addressed, the state of affairs is unlikely to alter. That means tackling community and gang violence, strengthening protection systems so children can exist condom in their communities, improving access to quality education and task opportunities, and making sure young people have the risk to gain the skills they need to build ameliorate – and safer – futures for themselves and their home countries.

UNICEF estimates that tens of thousands of children do migrate without legal permission, some with family and some alone, making them extremely vulnerable. Information technology is essential that child migrants – legal or otherwise – accept their rights upheld. Wherever they are, and whatever their story, migrant children are children get-go and foremost. Governments can protect child migrants by prioritizing the best interests of children in the application of immigration laws, and wherever possible, they must keep families together and use proven alternatives to detention, such as foster families or group homes – many governments are testing such approaches successfully.

The so-chosen urban advantage breaks down when nosotros look beyond averages and command for wealth, so social policies and programmes designed to support child survival and development must pay greater attention to the poorest and almost marginalized urban children. Modern cities generally offer better access to clean water, health and social services, and educational opportunities. Thus, if city governments tin can work to create inclusive access and equality of opportunity for the children in their cities, urban life could indeed provide a boost for child survival and development.

Why I'm worried:

Every child has a right to a legal identity, to birth registration and a nationality. But a quarter of you lot born today – about 100,000 babies – may never have an official birth certificate or authorize for a passport. If your parents are stateless, from a persecuted or marginalized community, or just if you live in a poor remote region, you may never exist given an identity or nativity certificate. Y'all may even be denied citizenship or take your citizenship stripped from you lot. This lack of formal recognition by any state ways you may be denied wellness care, education and other government services. Later in life, the lack of official identification can mean you enter into marriage, dangerous piece of work, or become conscripted into the war machine before the legal age. As an unregistered or 'stateless' child, you lot are invisible to the government – information technology'south equally if you never existed.

For example, in the makeshift camps in Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugee families have fled seeking sanctuary, babies are born every day. A Rohingya baby is unlikely to have their birth registered and accept a nationality conferred upon them, robbing them of this basic 'passport to protection' from the very start of life.

And there is another group of children today facing the threat of life without a clear legal identity and being left stateless. If yous are an innocent child built-in to a foreign fighter from an armed group, you lot may not have citizenship, or you may accept your citizenship stripped from you. In the Syria alone, UNICEF estimates that there are close to 29,000 strange children, almost of them under the age of 12, and an boosted 1,000 children believed to be in Iraq, who may accept no ceremonious documentation. They are at risk of becoming stateless and invisible.

Why there is hope:

Registering children at nativity is the first step in securing their recognition before the constabulary, safeguarding their rights, and ensuring that whatsoever violation of these rights does not go unnoticed. The Un has set a goal that every human being on the planet will take a legal identity past 2030. UNICEF is supporting governments to work towards this goal, starting with registering all births.

For some children denied an official identity because of disagreements over their legal status, the only real solution is a political ane. UNICEF urges Member States to fulfil their responsibilities to protect everyone under the historic period of xviii in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Kid. This includes children who are born to nationals from other states, who may be migrants, refugees or foreign fighters – because children are children outset and foremost.

In other circumstances, technology and innovative partnerships promise a style forwards. In the Plurinational Country of Republic of bolivia, for instance, TIGO – a nationwide telecommunications visitor – the Electoral High Tribunal and UNICEF worked to increment birth registration in hospitals and wellness centres, resulting in registration at nascency increasing by more than 500 per cent between 2015 and 2018. In Rwanda, the automatic registering of children at birth in hospitals led to birth registration increasing from 67 per cent in 2017 to lxxx.ii per cent in 2018. We must urgently scale upward programmes like this to reach more children. This ways dramatically expanding digital access to the most remote and vulnerable communities, so registration systems can happen in real-time.

Why I'k worried:

There are more than 1.8 billion young people between the ages of 10 and 24 in the world, ane of the largest cohorts in human being history. Too often, they lack access to an teaching that will prepare them for contemporary job and business organisation opportunities – giving them the skills and outlook they need for a xx-first century economic system. Meanwhile, in the past 30 years, relative income inequality between countries has reduced, simply absolute income inequality has increased significantly, so that some children and families with depression incomes are left behind and miss out on the opportunities their richer peers enjoy. Moreover, mobility has stalled over the final 30 years, miring another generation in a poverty trap determined entirely by the family unit she or he is born into.

Why there is hope:

UNICEF and our global partners have launched a new initiative to prepare young people to become productive and engaged citizens. Generation Unlimited aims to ensure every young person is in school, learning, training or employed by 2030. One plan in Argentine republic connects rural students in remote areas with secondary school teachers, both in person and online. An initiative in S Africa called TechnoGirl gives young women from disadvantaged backgrounds job-shadowing opportunities in the STEM fields. And in People's republic of bangladesh, tens of thousands of young people are receiving training in trades such every bit mobile-phone servicing. Through our Youth Claiming, we are bringing together bright young minds to solve problems in their communities, because young people are experts in their own lives and experiences. The Generation Unlimited Youth Challenge has worked with more than 800 innovators beyond xvi countries and produced innovative solutions such as the SpeakOut mobile app, developed past young people in North Republic of macedonia as an anonymous way to achieve out to peers for help with bullying, and The Reddish Lawmaking, a self-sustaining micro-entrepreneurial scheme from Pakistan, which helps young women with both menstrual hygiene management and income generation.

Why I'yard worried:

The www was born in the same year as the Convention on the Rights of the Kid, 30 years ago. Today information technology has radically inverse the world and reshaped babyhood and adulthood akin. More 1 in 3 children globally are thought to be regular users of the internet, and equally this generation grows upward, that proportion is prepare to grow and grow.

Debates about the benefits and dangers of social media for children are becoming familiar, and more than activeness to protect children from bullying and exposure to harmful content is certainly needed. Parent and children are also condign enlightened of the chance of sharing too much personal data on social media. But the truth is, the data contained inside social media profiles created by children are but the tip of the data iceberg. Less well understood but at least as important, is the enormous accumulation of information being collected almost children. As children get well-nigh their daily online lives, browsing social media, using search engines, e-commerce and government platforms, playing games, downloading apps and using mobile geolocation services, a digital footprint equanimous of thousands of pieces of data is accumulating around them. Some of the data may even have been gathered before birth and certainly before children are able to knowingly consent to its collection and employ.

The era of so-called 'big data' has the potential to transform – for the better – the provision of efficient, personalized and responsive services to children, only it also has potential negative impacts on their safe, privacy, autonomy and future life choices. Personal data created during childhood may be shared with 3rd parties, traded for profit or used to exploit young people – particularly the most vulnerable and marginalized. Meanwhile, identity thieves and hackers take exploited vulnerabilities in e-commerce platforms to defraud and exploit adults and children alike; search engines runway users' behaviour regardless of their age, and authorities surveillance of online activity is increasingly sophisticated around the earth. Moreover, data nerveless during childhood have the potential to influence future opportunities, such as admission to finance, education, insurance and health care. The relationship between data drove and usage, consent and privacy is complex enough for adults, merely it is doubly so for children, since the internet has never been designed with children's rights and needs in heed, and few are equipped to navigate the complexities of data sharing and privacy control.

Likewise often, children do not know what rights they accept over their own information and do not understand the implications of their information use, and how vulnerable information technology can leave them. Privacy terms and conditions on social media platforms are often barely understood past highly educated adults, let lonely children. An analysis from The New York Times, showed that many social media privacy policies require a reading comprehension level that exceeds that of the average college student, pregnant many users, especially the very young, are probably consenting to things they can't fully understand.

Why there is hope:

The challenge facing united states of america all today is to ensure that we design systems that maximize the positive benefits of big data and bogus intelligence, while preserving privacy, providing protections from harm and empowering people – including children – to exercise their rights. And we are starting time to see action: governments are strengthening regulatory frameworks; private sector providers are recognizing their part; and educators are thinking about how to equip children with the tools to navigate the online world safely. Information technology is a offset.

The Convention on the Rights of the Kid makes information technology articulate that children accept a specific right to privacy and in that location is no reason this should not use online. Contextualizing children's right to privacy within the full range of their other rights, all-time interests and evolving capacities, information technology is axiomatic that children'due south privacy differs both in telescopic and application from adults' privacy and there is a stiff argument that children should exist offered fifty-fifty more robust protection.

Where children use social media they need to accept real opt-in or opt-out opportunities in relation to how their data are used by the provider or other commercial interests, and the terms and conditions need to be clear and understandable to children. As some children have argued themselves, this might extend to deleting historical social media profiles for instance. Where data is collected about children through tracking their online behaviours, it is crucial that clear, transparent and attainable privacy policies are made bachelor so that children have a meliorate gamble of offer informed consent, can understand their rights and know what the intended usage of the collected data is. Equipping immature people with the noesis and skills to claim their digital rights is essential.

Private sector internet service providers and social media platforms have a crucial role to play in strengthening protections for children. They must develop transparent, ethical standards and implement heightened scrutiny and protection for the full range of data concerning children, including information on children's location and browsing habits and specially regarding their personal information.

And some new regulatory frameworks, such as the European General Information Protection Regulation (GDPR), correspond a promising try at progress. The European union GDPR says that internet users, including children, accept the correct to be provided with a transparent and clear privacy find, which explains how their information volition be processed, that they should exist able to get a copy of their personal data and take incorrect data most them rectified.

Global Pulse is a United Nations initiative that explores how new, digital data sources and real-time analytics technologies can provide a better understanding of changes in human well-being and emerging vulnerabilities, with the potential to support development. Responding to legitimate concerns about privacy and data protection, in consultation with privacy experts, Global Pulse has developed a set of privacy principles which ensure transparency nearly the purpose of data use, protect individual privacy, acknowledge the need for proper consent for use of personal data and respect a reasonable expectation of privacy, while making all reasonable efforts to preclude any unlawful and unjustified re-identification of individuals.

Why I'yard worried:

Every kid has the right to actively participate in their societies, and for many of yous, your first experiences of civic date will be online. However, the bulk of you will abound up every bit natives of a digital environment that is saturated with misinformation and so-called 'fake news,' which undermines trust and engagement with institutions and information sources. Studies indicate that many children and young people today have a difficult time distinguishing fact from fiction online and equally a consequence, your generation is finding it more difficult to know who and what to trust.

A United Kingdom Parliament-backed Commission on Imitation News, run in partnership with Facebook, Commencement News and The Day, found that only a quarter of the children reading online news actually trust the sources they are reading. It is tempting to see this as a positive sign of salubrious critical thinking skills at work, just the same study also found that just 2 per cent of children and young people in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland have the disquisitional literacy skills they need to tell if a news story is real or fake. Worryingly, about two thirds of teachers said they believe fake news is harming children's well-beingness by increasing levels of anxiety and skewing children's' world view. And a study in the United States on schools from 12 states of the United states of america assessing 'borough online reasoning' – or the ability to judge the credibility of online data – found that when evaluating information on social media, children and young people are hands duped.

We know the impact of misinformation is pernicious and has real-globe impacts. For instance, thousands of the current generation of parents accept been misled by misinformation spread through social media and mobile messaging apps near the prophylactic of vaccines, prompting a wave of vaccine hesitancy and a worrisome resurgence of measles in high- and low-income countries alike, including France, Bharat and the Philippines.

Misinformation campaigns take duped children into handing over coin, giving abroad their information and being groomed and exploited for sexual activity. And in the past few years, we've seen how misinformation tin skew autonomous debate, voter intentions, and sow doubtfulness about other ethnic, religious or social groups – creating division and unrest. This is a global event, with reports emerging from countries every bit diverse equally Brazil, Ukraine and the United States where  sophisticated disinformation campaigns take necessitated the teaching of 'Larn to Discern' classes in schools. And in Myanmar, it has been alleged that a misinformation campaign played a office in inciting horrific violence against the Rohingya minority.

This is merely the tip of the post-truth iceberg. As the technology to deceive improves, and verifying content becomes more than difficult, the potential for lowered trust in institutions and social discord grows exponentially. For example, with sophisticated video manipulation engineering science using AI-generated synthetic media, it is becoming easier to misconstrue and manipulate reality, making it seem equally though individuals have said things they have not, in so-chosen 'deep fakes'. If these technologies advance, with no mitigating activeness to assist the next generation root out fakes, they have the potential to fundamentally undermine conviction in scientific discipline and medicine, erode core institutions and beliefs, dissever communities, and pose a grave threat to our democracies.

Nosotros can no longer residue on the naïve assurance that truth has an innate upper hand against falsehood in the digital era, and and then we must, as societies, build resilience against the daily drench of falsity online. We should starting time past equipping young people with the ability to understand who and what they can trust online, and so they can get active, engaged citizens.

Why there is hope:

In that location is some evidence to propose that adults should identify their trust in children and young people non to fall for fakes. A recent research study published by the American Clan for the Advancement of Science plant that social media users over 65 shared nearly seven times as many articles from fake news domains as the youngest historic period group. While the reasons for this are as yet unexplained, it may indicate that a higher level of digital and media literacy amid 'digital natives' acts as a protective filter. However, it is clear nosotros need to work harder to set savvy young citizens to resist manipulation and retain a trusting connectedness to reliable and verifiable information and institutional knowledge.

While social media platforms appear to be serious in their attempts to gainsay misinformation and piece of work with news organizations to clearly label trusted sources, we cannot rely on the supply side for solutions. Children have a right to an education that prepares them for the world they will live in, and today, this includes much improved digital and media literacy, disquisitional thinking and weighing upwards evidence. The Director of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is including questions about distinguishing what is true from what is not true in the adjacent round of the influential international PISA tests, seeing critical judgment as a global competency, and similar initiatives could help to mainstream education and training in digital literacy skills that could be among the most important for the adjacent generation. Moreover, nosotros must work hard to build meaningful connections between young people and institutions, rebuilding trust, if we are to preserve democratic societies in the hereafter.

A final give-and-take...

Finally, the biggest reason for hope is because you – the children and young people of today – are taking the lead on demanding urgent activeness, and empowering yourselves to learn about, and shape the world effectually you lot. You lot are taking a stand at present, and we are listening.

Just as the children of 1989 accept emerged as leaders of today, you the children and young people of 2019 are the leaders of the future. You inspire us.

Nosotros want to piece of work together with you to find the solutions you lot need to tackle the challenges of today, to build amend futures for yourselves and the earth you will inherit.

Henrietta H. Fore
UNICEF Executive Director

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Source: https://www.unicef.org/child-rights-convention/open-letter-to-worlds-children

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