Children’s Rights, The Optional Protocol and Child Sexual Abuse Material in the Digital Age

Around the time of the drafting of the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, few could have predicted the monumental impact of camera, phone, computer and social media technologies on people’s lives. While these technologies have aided the realisation of many children’s rights, evidence suggests that child sexual abuse material (csam) is more available and in larger quantities than it has ever been in human history. New technologies have made major contributions to this horrifying development. Are the terms of the Optional Protocol able to meet this urgent and rising problem in a way that best ensures children’s rights? Does it ensure that the international community combats this problem without encroaching on the opportunities that digital technologies offer to children today? This article explores both of these questions with reference to the Optional Protocol’s terms, as well as the recent guidelines and General Comment No. 25 issued by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. It concludes that the Optional Protocol is deficient in prioritising law enforcement responses to csam and failing to ensure prevention initiatives receive adequate attention and resources. Moreover, it finds that the few prevention initiatives for which it does provide are in tension with other aims of the children’s rights project. It argues that the Committee needs to alter its approach in engaging with the reports of States parties so that there can be greater prioritisation of child-centric prevention initiatives.