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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
VOLUME 4 ISSUE 2 ISSN 2347-3185 2016
CHILDREN’S RIGHTS IN THE CYBERSPACE1
ANSHUMAN SAHOO2
Since the inception of Juvenile Jurisprudence in the mid-nineteenth century, there’s been a
great deal of debates and discussions on Juvenile justice and rights of the children. There
seems to be an endless ocean of conflicts and equivocalness as to what should be the nature
of Juvenile delinquency, what are the permissible or excusable limits of the aforesaid
delinquency, or most important, what should the limit on the age which puts a shield on the
responsibilities as well as liabilities of a juvenile. The Declaration of the Rights of the Child
in 1959 seemed to be somewhat effective in codifying the key concepts out of the chaos.
However, the convention was not satisfactory in terms of exhaustiveness and the world
strongly felt the need of another international convention codifying as well as enforcing the
rights of the child. On the basis of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, 1959, another
convention was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989. With 140
signatories and 196 parties thereto, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
came in to force on 2 September 1990, in accordance with article 49(1)3 of the aforesaid
convention4. Following the convention, though there was comparatively more certainty in the
arena, still it couldn’t be free from debates and conflicts.
Turning the point of discussion towards etymology, the term juvenile is a derivation from the
Latin term ‘iuvenis’ (pronounced as ‘juvenis’) meaning a child, which impliedly dictates the
meaning of the derived English word ‘juvenile’. The Juvenile Jurisprudence finds its root to
the fact (or belief) that immaturity and lack of experience of children makes them vulnerable
to a larger range of threats and dangers than the adults; and by reason of that sole fact they
deserve extra care as well as special treatment. However, general prudence and reasonable
humanitarian instinct also dictate the preferential treatment of children over adults, as the
future of any given society unequivocally depends on them. Thus, the requirement of
preferential treatment of the children over the adults gave birth to the juvenile jurisprudence.
The need of a legal recognition to the preferential treatment in legal proceedings initiated
1 A different version of this paper was presented in the IUD seminar on “Juvenile justice and Human rights” by
the author himself.
2 Scholar, The ICFAI University, Dehradun
3 UNTC (United Nations Treaty Collection), https://treaties.un.org/pages/viewdetails.aspx?
src=treaty&mtdsg_no=iv-11&chapter=4&lang=en
4 UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child). Also abbreviated as CRC or CROC.
Passed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989.
many debates and conflicts among the academia and intellectuals regarding the nature and
extent of such preferential treatment. With passing of time though, increasing number of
jurists have had the realisation that justice is the product of amalgamation of rights and
duties, and juvenile justice is not possible without juvenile rights.
Legislative (legal) recognition to the juvenile rights, or the rights of the children, in hundreds
of nations took an important turn with the declaration of UNCRC (United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child), with more than 100 signatories as well as parties
thereto. The Convention vested the children across the globe with certain basic child rights,
irrespective of the race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national,
ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or any other status whatsoever of the
children5 or their parents6. Children now, in addition to the basic human rights7, also enjoyed
the right to be loved, protected and taken care of.
CHILDREN’S RIGHTS UNDER UNCRC
The Convention on the Rights of the Child was the first instrument to incorporate the
complete range of international human rights – including civil, cultural, economic, political
and social rights as well as aspects of humanitarian law8. The United Nations Convention on
the Rights of the Child provided every child across the globe, without any discrimination on
the basis of race, sex, colour, religion, place of birth etc., with some basic child rights.
The UNCRC, under part - I (Article 1 to 41), declares some of those rights of the child, not in
an exhaustive but in an inclusive manner. Some of those include the right to equality (Non-
discrimination) (Article 2), right to survival and development (Right to life) (Article 6), right
to a name and nationality (Article 7) and preservation of identity (Article 8), right to live with
parents (Article 9) and family reunification (Art 10), right against illicit transfer or non-return
(Art 11), right to get her opinion heard (Art 12), right to freedom of expression (Art 13) and
5 UNCRC, Article 2(1):
States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their
jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal
guardian’s race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin,
property, disability, birth or other status.
6 UNCRC, Article 2(2):
States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of
discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child’s
parents, legal guardians, or family members.
7 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (The non-discriminatory and global nature of the UDHR makes
children entitled to rights under the same.
8 UNICEF on CRC (www.unicef.org/crc)
thought, conscience and religion (Art 14), freedom of association (Art 15), right to protection
of privacy (Art 16), access to appropriate information (Art 17), protection from abuse and
neglect (Art 19), right to get adopted (Art 21), right to full and decent life in case of children
with disabilities (Art 23), right to health and health services (Art 24), right to social security
(Art 26), standard of living (Art 27), right to education (Art 28), right to leisure and
recreation (Art 31), right against child labour (Art 32), drug abuse (33), sexual exploitation
(34), sale, trafficking and abduction (35) or any other form of exploitation (36) and right
against torture and deprivation of liberty (37), inter alia9.
However, these rights are inclusive rather than exhaustive and are exercisable at any place or
situation which the child gets or might get into, including schools, colleges, offices, home,
clubs, community centres, and even the cyberspace also. As mentioned earlier, the virtual
nature of the cyber space as distinguished from the real and tangible world doesn’t ipso facto
suspend the children’s rights in the cyber space.
CHILDREN AND THE CYBERSPACE
First of all, what is cyberspace? Cyberspace doesn’t have a single definition and is
considerably complex when comes to agreeing on a single sense. However, we can have a
look at some of the standard as well as accepted definitions of the term.
“The communication space created by the worldwide interconnection of automated
digital data processing equipment.”10
“Cyberspace is an interactive domain made up of digital networks that is used to
store, modify and communicate information. It includes the internet, but also the other
information systems that support our businesses, infrastructure and services.”11
“Cyber space encompasses all forms of networked, digital activities; this includes the
content of and actions conducted through digital networks.”12
“A global domain within the information environment consisting of the
interdependent network of information technology infrastructures and resident data,
9 UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child)
10France, Information Systems Defense and Security: France’s Strategy, 2011, p. 21
11 United Kingdom, The UK Cyber Security Strategy,: Protecting and promoting the UK in a digital world,
2011, p. 11
12 United Kingdom, Cyber Security Strategy of the United Kingdom: Safety, Security and resilience in
Cyberspace, 2009, p. 7
including the Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and
embedded processors and controllers.”13
In general, not attempting for an exhaustive definition, we can define cyberspace as the
global domain of interdependent as well as interactive networks, including the internet and
other telecommunication networks. Cyberspace, in a generic sense, means the internet in a
layman’s language. Everything connected to an internet comes under the purview of
cyberspace. The domain of cyberspace includes the large digital body of information and data
shared over various networks across the globe. Be it our home Wi-Fi connection or the office
telephone connection, every bit of digital information shared over such networks contributes
to the expansion of the cyber-domain.
With the upcoming of the information era, the domain covered under cyberspace seems to be
ever-growing and ever-expanding synchronously with furtherance in the development in
networking technologies. Nearly every aspect of our life is continually developing an online
side, as a mirror image of the offline world. Be it the e-commerce sites we access for online
business or the social networking sites we use to develop a virtual personality, every such
activity contributes to our online world, or, the personal cyber-zone. And, in this ever-
expanding cyberspace, children have come to play the role of the ‘harbingers of the cyber-
era’. Talking in round figures, some two-thirds of the world’s almost three billion internet
users are from the developing world, with the numbers growing every day. Many of these
new users are children and young people; in fact in many countries, internet users under the
age of 24 far outnumber the rest. The 21st century children, having grown up in a surrounding
surrounded by the cyberspace, are more intuitive and genius when it comes to digital literacy.
A growing body of evidence from across the world is also telling us that no matter where
they are from, more and more children are relying on digital tools, platforms and services to
learn, engage, participate, play, innovate, work or socialise.
Unfortunately, there are always two sides to a coin. With the benefits of the internet and other
digital tools, there are also new evolving risks like exposure to inappropriate content,
vulnerability to offline violence, concerns about excessive use and time killing, and also
countless issues regarding data protection and privacy. As the recent developments in
technical as well as non-technical fields have made it really difficult to draw a line of contrast
between the online and offline, it becomes increasingly necessary to analyse how this drastic
change affects the wellbeing and development of children and their rights.
13 United States of America, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and associated terms, 2014, p. 64 (JP
3-12)
“The Internet brings tremendous positive opportunities, in particular for children and
young people. Although the Internet may not represent a determinant per se of the
sale and sexual exploitation of children, it does nonetheless operate as an instrument
for offenders, multiplying the possibilities of obtaining, distributing and selling child
abuse material and facilitating access to children in all parts of the world, and
consequently promoting the growth of this phenomenon”.14
In order to ensure that children are safe online requires approaches that promote digital
literacy, cyber resilience and cyber know-how. Only then, we can reach consensus on how to
create a safe, open, accessible, affordable and secure cyberspace. Most important, the
profound insight of the young generation must help inform, shape and drive this goal – which
needs to focus on equity of access, safety for all, digital literacy across generations, identity
and privacy, participation and civic engagement.15
CHILDREN’S RIGHTS IN CYBERSPACE
As discussed earlier, in the contemporary global legal set up, the UNCRC16 primarily dictates
the rights of the children across the globe. What seems as a problem prima facie is that, the
UNCRC doesn’t explicitly prescribe any rights to the children in cyberspace. Therefore, on
the face of it, it seems like the children lack any sort of enforceable or legal rights in the
cyberspace.
“When children’s social environment is no longer only physical but also digital, then
that’s got to have an impact on almost every aspect of their lives . . . If there were a
CRC for the Digital Age and secondly a series of policy recommendations that we
could put in place to governments that say these are the six most important things that
you need to do to ensure that your young people’s engagement is constructive, rather
than destructive or worrying, then that would be a hell of a good start.”17
14 UN Secretary General’s Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child
Pornography. Report to the Human Rights Council of December 2013.
15 Supra, See note 21.
16 Supra, See note 3.
17 Christopher De Bono, UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office, Bangkok, On 8 February 2013 in an
interview by Sonia Livingstone and Monica Bulger. (Excerpt from the article ‘Sonia Livingstone & Monica
Bulger (2014): A Global Research Agenda for Children's Rights in The Digital Age, Journal of Children and
Media, DOI:
10.1080/17482798.2014.961496
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2014.961496)
However, experts express a contrary view on this topic. Even though the Convention on the
Rights of the Child was adopted by the General Assembly at a time where the Internet was
still in its infancy, it is fully relevant and applicable in the digital environment. However, it is
important to apply a digital-age specific interpretation of every article, adapted to today’s
realities. Although there are options of adopting a General Comment, a new Optional
Protocol or even a new Convention on digital media and children’s rights, still it may be
noted that new legal instruments may create further uncertainties and end up worsening the
situation. Therefore, building upon existing norms and standards and ensuring their effective
implementation seems a safer way out of the situation.18
Considering the fact that it’s nearly impossible to draw the line of separation between the
online and offline world, it’s quite reasonable an assumption to assume that the same laws,
rules as well as regulations are applicable to the cyberspace, with issue-specific interpretation
of the same. As discussed earlier, the virtual nature of the cyber space as distinguished from
the real and tangible world doesn’t ipso facto suspend the children’s rights in the cyber space.
As regards this, the UNCRC and other present laws and conventions can be made subject to a
digital-age specific interpretation to determine the Rights of the Child in the cyber space.
Many efforts have been made by experts in the field to interpret the Rights of the Child in a
digital-age specific context. The task being going a step further and examining how the
CRC19 applies to the digital, convergent and networked environment, it has been begun by
Livingstone and O’Neill (2014) focusing on the three P’s of Protection, Participation and
Provision as depicted in the table20 below.
Articles Digital-age specific interpretation
Protection against all forms of abuse and
neglect (Article 19), including sexual
exploitation and sexual abuse (Article 34), and
other forms of exploitation prejudicial to child’s
Effort to prevent creation and distribution of
online child abuse images, sexual grooming,
online dimension of child trafficking
18 COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD, REPORT OF THE 2014 DAY OF GENERAL
DISCUSSION “Digital media and children’s rights”
19 Supra. See note 3.
20 Livingstone, S., & O’Neill, B. (2014). Children’s rights online: Challenges, dilemmas and emerging
directions. In S. van der Hof, B. van den Berg, & B. Schermer (Eds.), Minding minors wandering the web:
Regulating online child safety (pp. 19–38). Berlin: Springer.
welfare (Article 36)
Protection from “material injurious to the
child’s well-being” (Article 17e), “arbitrary or
unlawful interference with his or her privacy,
family, or correspondence, nor to unlawful
attacks on his or her honour and reputation”
(Article 16) and right of child to preserve his or
her identity (Article 8)
Effort to prevent, manage and raise
awareness of reputational risks, privacy
intrusions, cyberbullying, pornography,
personal data misuse (including identifying,
location-based and financial information)
Provision to support children’s rights to
recreation and leisure as appropriate to their age
(Article 31), an education that will support the
development of their full potential (Article 28)
and prepare them ‘for responsible life in a free
society’ (Article 29)
Effort to provide educational technology,
online information and creative resources,
and promote digital skills in an equitable way
(taking into account relevant languages,
difficulties of access or conditions of
disability or disadvantage)
Recognising “the important function performed
by the mass media” encourages provision of
diverse material of social and cultural benefit to
the child (including minorities) to promote
children’s well-being (Article 17)
Effort to provide public and commercial
educational, civic, science, cultural and
heritage content online in an equitable way
(as above)
Participation rights: “In all actions concerning
children . . . the best interests of the child shall
be a primary consideration” (Article 3),
including the right of children to be consulted in
all matters affecting them (Article 12); see also
child’s freedom of expression (Article 13) and
freedom of association (Article 15)
Effort to include all children in diverse
societal processes, including consulting them
on matters of education, research and ICT
governance
The fast-changing, highly complex and transnational nature of socio-technological
infrastructures challenges national policy-makers. It is also problematic that the internet is
largely blind to age, treating children and adults equivalently and so rarely treating children
according to their “evolving capacities”, as required in the CRC articles 5 and 14.21 The effort
to interpret the CRC in a digital-age specific way doesn’t end here. The UNICEF country
office in Spain presented a set of 10 rights and duties relating to information and
communications technologies to mark the International Safer Internet Day on 6 February
2004. 22
Though the Decalogue may in no case be considered exhaustive, still it lays down many
important aspects of child rights. The rights of the child, as discussed earlier23, mainly
covered under Survival and Development rights, Protection rights, Protection rights and other
basic human rights, inter alia, can be enforced in the cyberspace by appropriate digital-age
specific interpretations. However, considering the involvement of children in the cyberspace
in specific cases requires child-specific analysis.
A child may be affected by the cyberspace by receiving inappropriate content or getting
contacted or acting in a wrong way. As far as receiving inappropriate or harmful content is
concerned, it may take place in many ways. While visiting websites, cookies or other
advertising methodologies enable commercial organisations to send children advertisements,
spams, sponsorships and ask for personal info also. Moreover, a child may receive violent or
hateful content online which inculcates in the child unwelcome aggressive attitude. Also,
with the child as a recipient, it’s not impossible to receive pornographic or sexual content
online which may affect the child in a wrong way. The content that a child may receive
online also may have the potential to shake the value system of a child encouraging in her
values like biasness, racism etc.
The children may also fall victim to unwanted advancements or contacts online. Tracking or
harvesting of personal information by commercial organisations may sometimes make the
child feel uncomfortable and infringe her privacy. Also, it may cause bullying, harassing or
other cyber crimes making the child an easy prey for the same. Moreover, the child may also
fall prey to unwanted sexual advances online which may affect the child psychologically in a
later stage.
21 eNACSO (European NGO Alliance for Child Safety Online). (2012). Is the UNCRC fit to purpose in the
digital era? (Event Report). Rome
22 Internetsegura.net, Decálogo de los derechos de la infancia en internet, 2004 [online]
(http://www.redes-cepalcala.org/inspector/DOCUMENTOS%20Y%20LIBROS/TIC/Internet%20Segura.pdf)
23 Supra. See note 9.
Most importantly, cyberspace provides children with an ample opportunity to commit crimes
and offences without much time to ponder over the consequences. Most of the time, children
committing such delinquencies aren’t even aware of the fact that their act or omission
constitutes to be a delinquent activity. Illegal downloading is one of such activities. Most
children don’t think much about pressing the download button when they see something
interesting; which may in a later stage lead to some complicated situations. Sometime, just
for the sake of their curiosity to explore new things and ideas, and to prove them superior,
children unknowingly commit the mistake of bullying or harassing other persons online, or
hacking, gambling, or creating and uploading inappropriate content. However, in a case of
cyber crime too, the children are entitled to the same preferential treatment over adult while
going through the proceedings in a court of law.
CONCLUSION
Children’s rights do exist in cyberspace; and the nature of their rights in cyberspace has been
discussed above. Having been discussed the nature and extent of their rights in cyberspace; it
requires a critical analysis of the current socio-political as well as legal scenario as to what
developments can be made to enforce the rights more effectively. Role of society as a whole
cannot be ignored in this important aspect. Analysing the role of individual sectors of society,
we find that the Government plays a major role in this. The government has to play a
mammoth role in order to effectively enforce the children’s rights in a civil society. Other
national human rights institutions as well as Non-Governmental Organisations also have a
major role to play in protecting the children’s rights in cyberspace.
Regarding the issue of lack of equal access to the cyberspace, there seems to be a number of
barriers to the same in this context. It’s evident that a lack of or insufficient technical and
physical availability of digital media and ICTs constitutes a key problem, particularly in
remote geographic areas.24 There are also chances of children facing economic barriers in
accessing ICTs. Moreover, it may be noted that problems of access are not only linked to
geography, infrastructure or resources but also to cultural factors which may hinder access to
technology for groups that are marginalised in some societies or in vulnerable situations. For
instance, girls often do not receive training in or are less encouraged to utilize ICTs due to
traditional attitudes and gender stereotypes. Children living in street situations, those
24 Committee on the Rights of the Child, Report of the 2014 Day of General Discussion “Digital media and
children’s rights
belonging to linguistic minorities as well as indigenous children and children living in rural
areas are also among the groups in need of special measures.25
Special steps must be taken to ensure right of equal access to children with disabilities. In
case of children with disabilities, barriers are created by the lack of inclusive and accessible
design of technology and content.26 Cost and intellectual property rights tend to limit such
rights to only some persons. For further information, references may be made to CRPD.27
Talking about the right to protection, it must be emphasised that protection under no
circumstances should be confused with control. Children should enjoy this right alongside
other cyber rights. Also, educating children on the acceptable social behaviour as a part of
their digital literacy skills can be an effective strategy. Children must be taught of the fact
that “Internet doesn’t know boundaries and doesn’t forget, including any experimental
behaviour of children”28; and silly experimental mistakes made by them unknowingly can
seriously trouble their privacy as well.
The importance of effective, efficient and child-sensitive remedies for victims of cyber
crimes cannot be ignored. Creation of help lines, awareness programmes and hotlines can be
proved beneficial towards this end. Also, it is not only necessary to provide effective support
mechanisms, but also to create an environment where children feel believed and safe.
However, no list of recommendations is complete without the one made by in consultation
with children, thereby using their right to participate in enforcing their right participate. With
further developments in the socio-technical scenario, there also develops a chance of growing
social concerns about the effective utilisation of the technology. Only such a concern, with a
digitally-literate mass, can enforce the children’s rights in the cyberspace. After all,
effectively effectuating the effect of those effective laws always require effective actions by
the civil society!
25 Ibid
26 Ibid
27 Convention on the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities
28 Supra. See note 32.
