Three Letter Word for Old Fashioned Ailment

An open letter to the world's children

8 reasons why I'yard worried, and hopeful, almost the next generation.

Dear children of today and of tomorrow,

Thirty years agone, against the backdrop of a irresolute world order – the fall of the Berlin Wall, the decline of apartheid, the nascency of the world wide web – the world united in defence of children and childhood. While most of the world'south parents at the time had grown upwardly nether dictatorships or declining governments, they hoped for better lives, greater opportunities and more rights for their children. So, when leaders came together in 1989 in a moment of rare global unity to make a historic commitment to the world'south children to protect and fulfil their rights, there was a real sense of hope for the adjacent generation.

So how much progress have we made? In the three decades following 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 primary school by most 40 per cent. The number of stunted children nether 5 years of age dropped by over 100 million. Three decades ago, polio paralyzed or killed about 1,000 children every day. Today, 99 per cent of those cases have been eliminated. Many of the interventions behind this progress – such as vaccines, oral rehydration salts and improve diet – have been practical and price-constructive. The ascension of digital and mobile technology and other innovations have fabricated it easier and more efficient to deliver critical services in hard-to accomplish communities and to expand opportunities.

Yet poverty, inequality, discrimination and distance continue to deny millions of children their rights every year, as 15,000 children under 5 still die every twenty-four hours, generally from treatable diseases and other preventable causes. Nosotros are facing an alarming rise in overweight children, but also girls suffering from anaemia. The stubborn challenges of open defecation and child marriage continue to threaten children's wellness and futures. Whilst the numbers of children in school are higher than ever, the challenge of achieving quality education is not existence met. Beingness in schoolhouse is not the same as learning; more than sixty per cent of principal schoolhouse children in developing countries nonetheless neglect to achieve minimum proficiency in learning and half the world's teens face up violence in and around school, and so it doesn't experience similar a place of safety. Conflicts go along to deny children the protection, health and futures they deserve. The list of ongoing kid 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. Technology is transforming how nosotros perceive the earth. And more families are migrating than ever earlier. Childhood has changed, and we demand to change our approaches along with it.

So, as we look back on 30 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, we should also look alee, to the adjacent 30 years. We must mind to yous – today's children and young people – about the bug of greatest concern to y'all now and begin working with you lot on twenty-starting time century solutions to twenty-offset century bug.

With that in mind, hither are eight reasons why I'm worried for your futurity, and eight reasons why I think at that place is promise:

Why I'm worried:

Information technology sounds obvious that all children demand these basics to sustain healthy lives – a clean environment to live in, clean air to breathe, water to drink and nutrient to eat – and information technology sounds foreign to be making this point in 2019. Yet climate change has the potential to undermine all of these basic rights and indeed most of the gains fabricated in kid survival and evolution over the past 30 years. At that place is perhaps no greater threat facing the rights of the next generation of children.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation noted concluding year that climate change is becoming a primal force backside the recent continued rise in global hunger, and as escalating droughts and flooding dethrone food production, the next generation of children will bear the greatest brunt of hunger and malnutrition. Nosotros are already seeing evidence of farthermost weather events driven by climate change creating more than frequent and more than destructive natural disasters, and while future forecasts vary, according to the International Organization for Migration, the most oft cited number of environmental migrants expected worldwide past 2050 is 200 1000000, with estimates as high as 1 billion.

As temperatures increase and water becomes scarcer it is children who will feel the deadliest affect of waterborne diseases. Today, more than half a billion children live in areas with extremely loftier overflowing occurrence and well-nigh 160 million in high-drought severity zones. Regions like the Sahel, which are especially reliant on agriculture, grazing and angling, are especially vulnerable to the furnishings of climatic change. In this barren region, rains are projected to get even shorter and less anticipated in the future, and alarmingly, the region is warming up at a charge per unit one and a half times faster than the global average. In the Sahel, the climate gets hotter and the poor get poorer, and information technology is all too common for armed groups to exploit the social grievances that arise nether such pressurized conditions.

These challenges will only exist compounded by the impact of air pollution, toxic waste 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 age of 5. Even more than volition suffer lasting damage to their developing brains and lungs.

And, by 2040, i in iv children will live in areas of farthermost water stress and thousands volition exist fabricated sick by polluted water. The management and protection of clean, plentiful, accessible groundwater supplies, and the management of plastic waste matter are very fast becoming defining kid health problems for our time.

Why at that place is promise:

To mitigate climate change, governments and business concern must work together to tackle the root causes by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Understanding. Meanwhile, nosotros must give the highest priority to efforts to notice 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 customs wellness 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 water scarcity and illness.

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

To turn the tide on air pollution, governments and business must work paw in hand to reduce fossil fuel consumption, develop cleaner agricultural, industrial and transport systems and invest in scaling renewable energy sources. Many governments take taken activeness to curb pollution from power plants, industrial facilities and road vehicles with strict regulations. A 2011 study past the Usa Environmental Protection Bureau found that the country's 1990 Make clean Air Human activity had delivered US$30 of health benefits to citizens for every US$1 spent. Such policies hold the fundamental to protecting little lungs and babies' brains from damaging airborne pollutants and particulate thing.

In the meantime, information technology is vital that nosotros search for solutions that can amend the worst effects of air pollution on kid health. Mongolia's uppercase urban center Ulaanbaatar has among the nigh polluted air in the earth during winter. The biggest source of pollution comes from coal-burning used by 60 per cent of Ulaanbaatar's population. UNICEF innovation experts together with the community, government, academia and the private sector have begun to design 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 too, reducing toxic waste and putting rubbish to expert use. Conceptos Plasticos, a Colombian social enterprise, has developed a technique to brand 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 first recycled plastic classroom was built earlier this year in Côte d'Ivoire, in just a few weeks. It price xxx per cent less than traditional classrooms. This innovative approach of transforming plastic waste into construction bricks has the potential to turn a plastic waste direction claiming into an opportunity, past addressing the right to an pedagogy with the structure of schools, empowering these communities and cleaning upwardly the environment at the aforementioned time.

Why I'yard worried:

Children have e'er been the showtime victims of war. Today, the number of countries experiencing conflict is the highest it has ever been since the adoption of the Child Rights Convention in 1989. One in four children now live in countries affected by violent fighting or disaster, with 28 one thousand thousand children driven from their homes by wars and insecurity. Many lose several years of school – too every bit records of achievements and qualifications for future learning and careers. Conflicts and natural disasters take already disrupted learning for 75 million children and young people, many of whom have migrated across borders or been displaced. That is a personal tragedy for every single child. To abandon 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 cost united states of america all.

Why there is hope:

Some states have demonstrated effective policies to go along refugees learning. When big numbers of children escaping the state of war in the Syrian Arab Commonwealth arrived in Lebanon, the regime faced the challenge of accommodating hundreds of thousands of children in a public-school organisation already under strain. With the back up of international partners, they turned that challenge into an opportunity and integrated refugee children into schools while strengthening the pedagogy system for Lebanese students at the same time.

And digital innovations tin 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 allow young people, no matter their state of affairs, to become access to education. Scaling up solutions similar the digital learning passport could help millions of displaced children gain the skills they need to thrive.

Why I'm worried:

If we believed everything we read about teenagers today, and the images portrayed in television and film, we could exist forgiven for thinking they are a wild, antisocial bunch. Yet nothing could exist further from the truth. The testify really shows that teens today smoke less, drink less, become into less problem and generally take fewer risks than previous generations. Yous might fifty-fifty call them Generation Sensible.

Yet there is one area of chance for adolescents showing an extremely worrisome tendency in the wrong direction – one that reminds us of the invisible vulnerability that young people notwithstanding carry within of them. Mental health disorders among under 18s accept been rising steadily over the past thirty years and depression is now among the leading causes of disability in the young. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 62,000 adolescents died in 2016 considering of self-damage, which is at present the third leading cause of decease for adolescents anile 15 –xix.

This is non just a rich country trouble – WHO estimates that more than than 90 per cent of adolescent suicides in 2016 were in low or middle-income countries. And while immature people with astringent mental disorders in lower-income countries often miss out on handling and support, there is no land in the world that tin merits to have conquered this challenge. To quote the WHO'due south mental health practiced Shekhar Saxena, "when it comes to mental health, all countries are developing countries." With most low-income and eye-income countries spending less than 1 per cent of their total wellness upkeep on mental health, and loftier-income countries just 4–5 per cent, it is clear that it needs greater priority around the world.

UNICEF works with children who have suffered unthinkable traumas, gender discrimination, extreme poverty, sexual violence, disability and chronic illness, living through conflict and other experiences that place them at high chance of mental distress. The cost is not only personal, it is societal – the World Economical Forum consistently ranks mental wellness as having one of the greatest economic burdens of any not-communicable wellness issue. Despite this overwhelming show of a looming crisis and the alarming trends in rising self-impairment and suicide rates, adolescent mental health and well-being have often been overlooked in global health programming.

Why there is hope:

With half of lifetime mental health disorders starting before age fourteen, age-appropriate mental health promotion, prevention and therapeutic treatment and rehabilitation must be prioritized. Early detection and treatment are central to preventing episodes of mental distress reaching a crisis signal and precious immature lives being damaged and lost. But all also ofttimes, what stands in the mode of young people seeking aid at an early on phase is the ongoing stigma and taboo that prevents communities talking openly virtually mental health bug. Fortunately, this taboo is offset to fall, and young people, once over again, are leading the style – founding non-governmental organizations, developing apps, raising awareness, and being vocal about their own struggles with mental illness and their efforts to address their condition, in hope that others feel empowered to do the aforementioned.

UNICEF uses campaigns in schools to promote open give-and-take about mental health. For example, in Kazakhstan, which has one of the highest suicide rates among adolescents worldwide, UNICEF stepped up efforts to better the mental well-being of adolescents through a big-calibration pilot programme in over 450 schools. The programme raised sensation, trained staff to identify loftier-risk cases, and ensured referral of vulnerable adolescents to wellness specialists. Virtually 50,000 young people participated in the pilot with many significant improvements in well-existence. The programme has since been scaled upwards 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 bloodshed in the xv –17 years age group at the national level and the number of suicide cases decreased from 212 in 2013 to 104 in 2018 for this age group. And perhaps most chiefly, mental health is now beingness integrated into mainstream master wellness care services, helping to overcome the stigma which often puts young people off from seeking help.

Why I'thousand worried:

Migration has been function of the human being experience throughout history. For thousands of years, children and families have left their place of birth to settle in new communities in search of educational or employment opportunities. Today is no different. We live in a mobile world in which at to the lowest degree 30 million children have moved beyond borders.

For many, migration is propelled by a drive for a better life. Only for also many children, migration is not a positive pick but an urgent necessity – they simply do not have the opportunity to build a safe, healthy and prosperous life in the place they are born. When migration is driven past desperation, it can lead to children migrating without the legal permissions they need, becoming so-called 'irregular migrants'. They often take perilous journeys across deserts, oceans and armed borders, encountering violence, corruption and exploitation on the style.

And ane of the greatest migrations the world has always seen is happening non across borders, but 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's children lived in rural areas. Today the majority live in cities, and the urbanization rate is ready to grow. Though urban residents on average savor better access to services and opportunities, inequalities can be so large that many of the most disadvantaged children in urban areas fare worse than children in rural areas. For example, the poorest urban children in ane in iv countries are more likely to die before their fifth birthday than the poorest children in rural areas. And the poorest urban children in 1 in vi countries are less likely to consummate main schoolhouse than rural children.

Why there is promise:

No child should feel forced to migrate from their dwelling house, yet until the root causes are addressed, the state of affairs is unlikely to change. That means tackling community and gang violence, strengthening protection systems so children tin be safe in their communities, improving admission to quality education and job opportunities, and making sure young people have the chance to gain the skills they need to build better – and safer – futures for themselves and their habitation countries.

UNICEF estimates that tens of thousands of children practise migrate without legal permission, some with family and some alone, making them extremely vulnerable. It is essential that child migrants – legal or otherwise – have their rights upheld. Wherever they are, and whatever their story, migrant children are children showtime and foremost. Governments tin protect kid migrants by prioritizing the best interests of children in the application of clearing laws, and wherever possible, they must keep families together and use proven alternatives to detention, such equally foster families or grouping homes – many governments are testing such approaches successfully.

The so-called urban advantage breaks down when we look beyond averages and control for wealth, and so social policies and programmes designed to support child survival and evolution must pay greater attention to the poorest and most marginalized urban children. Modern cities generally offer amend access to clean water, health and social services, and educational opportunities. Thus, if metropolis governments can work to create inclusive access and equality of opportunity for the children in their cities, urban life could indeed provide a heave for child survival and development.

Why I'1000 worried:

Every child has a right to a legal identity, to birth registration and a nationality. But a quarter of you born today – almost 100,000 babies – may never have an official birth certificate or qualify for a passport. If your parents are stateless, from a persecuted or marginalized community, or merely if you alive in a poor remote region, y'all may never exist given an identity or nascence certificate. You may fifty-fifty be denied citizenship or take your citizenship stripped from you. This lack of formal recognition by any country ways you may be denied health care, education and other regime services. Later on in life, the lack of official identification can mean y'all enter into marriage, dangerous piece of work, or get conscripted into the military before the legal age. As an unregistered or 'stateless' child, you are invisible to the government – it'due south every bit if you never existed.

For case, 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 babe is unlikely to take their birth registered and accept a nationality conferred upon them, robbing them of this basic 'passport to protection' from the very offset of life.

And there is another group of children today facing the threat of life without a articulate legal identity and being left stateless. If you are an innocent kid built-in to a foreign fighter from an armed group, you may non accept citizenship, or you may have your citizenship stripped from you. In the Syrian Arab Republic solitary, UNICEF estimates that at that place are close to 29,000 foreign children, almost of them under the age of 12, and an additional 1,000 children believed to be in Republic of iraq, who may have no ceremonious documentation. They are at chance of becoming stateless and invisible.

Why there is hope:

Registering children at nativity is the first pace in securing their recognition before the law, safeguarding their rights, and ensuring that whatever violation of these rights does non become unnoticed. The United nations has set up a goal that every homo on the planet will accept a legal identity by 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 i. UNICEF urges Fellow member States to fulfil their responsibilities to protect everyone nether the historic period of 18 in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This includes children who are born to nationals from other states, who may exist migrants, refugees or foreign fighters – because children are children outset and foremost.

In other circumstances, engineering and innovative partnerships promise a way forward. In the Plurinational State of Republic of bolivia, for example, TIGO – a nationwide telecommunications company – the Electoral High Tribunal and UNICEF worked to increase nascence registration in hospitals and health centres, resulting in registration at birth increasing by more than 500 per cent between 2015 and 2018. In Rwanda, the automated registering of children at birth in hospitals led to birth registration increasing from 67 per cent in 2017 to 80.ii per cent in 2018. We must urgently scale up programmes similar this to reach more children. This means dramatically expanding digital access to the nearly remote and vulnerable communities, so registration systems can happen in real-fourth dimension.

Why I'm worried:

At that place are more than 1.viii billion young people between the ages of 10 and 24 in the earth, one of the largest cohorts in homo history. Too often, they lack access to an educational activity that volition prepare them for gimmicky task and business concern opportunities – giving them the skills and outlook they demand for a 20-first century economy. Meanwhile, in the past 30 years, relative income inequality between countries has reduced, only absolute income inequality has increased significantly, so that some children and families with depression incomes are left backside 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 she or he is built-in into.

Why there is hope:

UNICEF and our global partners accept launched a new initiative to prepare young people to go productive and engaged citizens. Generation Unlimited aims to ensure every immature person is in schoolhouse, learning, training or employed by 2030. Ane programme in Argentina connects rural students in remote areas with secondary school teachers, both in person and online. An initiative in South Africa called TechnoGirl gives young women from disadvantaged backgrounds job-shadowing opportunities in the Stem fields. And in Bangladesh, tens of thousands of young people are receiving training in trades such every bit mobile-phone servicing. Through our Youth Challenge, nosotros are bringing together bright young minds to solve issues in their communities, considering young people are experts in their own lives and experiences. The Generation Unlimited Youth Challenge has worked with more than 800 innovators across 16 countries and produced innovative solutions such as the SpeakOut mobile app, adult by young people in Northward Macedonia every bit an anonymous way to accomplish out to peers for help with bullying, and The Cherry-red Lawmaking, a cocky-sustaining micro-entrepreneurial scheme from Pakistan, which helps young women with both menstrual hygiene management and income generation.

Why I'1000 worried:

The world broad web was born in the same year as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, xxx years agone. Today it has radically changed the globe and reshaped babyhood and adulthood alike. More than 1 in 3 children globally are thought to exist regular users of the internet, and as this generation grows upwards, that proportion is set to grow and grow.

Debates about the benefits and dangers of social media for children are becoming familiar, and more than activity to protect children from bullying and exposure to harmful content is certainly needed. Parent and children are besides becoming aware of the risk of sharing as well much personal information on social media. But the truth is, the data contained within social media profiles created past children are just the tip of the information iceberg. Less well understood but at least as important, is the enormous accumulation of data being collected about children. As children get about 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 composed of thousands of pieces of data is accumulating around them. Some of the data may even have been gathered before birth and certainly earlier children are able to knowingly consent to its drove and apply.

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, merely it besides has potential negative impacts on their safety, privacy, autonomy and hereafter life choices. Personal information 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 have exploited vulnerabilities in due east-commerce platforms to defraud and exploit adults and children alike; search engines track users' behaviour regardless of their age, and government surveillance of online activity is increasingly sophisticated around the globe. Moreover, data nerveless during childhood take the potential to influence futurity opportunities, such as access to finance, didactics, insurance and health care. The human relationship between data drove and usage, consent and privacy is complex plenty for adults, only it is doubly so for children, since the net has never been designed with children's rights and needs in mind, and few are equipped to navigate the complexities of data sharing and privacy control.

Too often, children practise not know what rights they accept over their own information and do not empathize the implications of their data use, and how vulnerable it can leave them. Privacy terms and conditions on social media platforms are oftentimes barely understood by highly educated adults, let alone children. An assay from The New York Times, showed that many social media privacy policies require a reading comprehension level that exceeds that of the boilerplate college pupil, meaning many users, especially the very immature, are probably consenting to things they tin't fully understand.

Why there is hope:

The challenge facing usa all today is to ensure that we design systems that maximize the positive benefits of large data and bogus intelligence, while preserving privacy, providing protections from harm and empowering people – including children – to do their rights. And we are start to see action: governments are strengthening regulatory frameworks; private sector providers are recognizing their role; and educators are thinking most how to equip children with the tools to navigate the online globe safely. It is a offset.

The Convention on the Rights of the Kid makes it clear that children take a specific correct to privacy and there is no reason this should not use online. Contextualizing children'southward right to privacy within the full range of their other rights, best interests and evolving capacities, information technology is evident that children'southward privacy differs both in scope and application from adults' privacy and in that location is a potent argument that children should exist offered fifty-fifty more robust protection.

Where children use social media they need to have existent opt-in or opt-out opportunities in relation to how their data are used past the provider or other commercial interests, and the terms and conditions need to be articulate and understandable to children. As some children accept argued themselves, this might extend to deleting historical social media profiles for instance. Where data is collected about children through tracking their online behaviours, information technology is crucial that articulate, transparent and accessible privacy policies are fabricated available so that children have a better chance of offering informed consent, can understand their rights and know what the intended usage of the nerveless data is. Equipping immature people with the knowledge and skills to claim their digital rights is essential.

Individual 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 information concerning children, including data on children'due south location and browsing habits and especially regarding their personal information.

And some new regulatory frameworks, such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), represent a promising endeavour at progress. The EU GDPR says that internet users, including children, take the right to exist provided with a transparent and clear privacy observe, which explains how their information will be processed, that they should be able to get a copy of their personal data and have incorrect information near them rectified.

Global Pulse is a United Nations initiative that explores how new, digital data sources and real-time analytics technologies tin can provide a better understanding of changes in man well-being and emerging vulnerabilities, with the potential to back up evolution. 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 about the purpose of data use, protect individual privacy, admit the need for proper consent for use of personal data and respect a reasonable expectation of privacy, while making all reasonable efforts to prevent whatsoever unlawful and unjustified re-identification of individuals.

Why I'm worried:

Every child has the right to actively participate in their societies, and for many of you, your first experiences of civic engagement will exist online. All the same, the majority of you will grow upward equally natives of a digital environment that is saturated with misinformation then-called 'fake news,' which undermines trust and appointment with institutions and data sources. Studies bespeak that many children and young people today have a hard fourth dimension distinguishing fact from fiction online and as a event, your generation is finding it more difficult to know who and what to trust.

A United Kingdom Parliament-backed Commission on Simulated News, run in partnership with Facebook, Outset News and The 24-hour interval, establish that only a quarter of the children reading online news really trust the sources they are reading. Information technology is tempting to see this as a positive sign of healthy critical thinking skills at work, merely the aforementioned study also found that simply 2 per cent of children and young people in the U.k. have the disquisitional literacy skills they need to tell if a news story is existent or faux. Worryingly, near two thirds of teachers said they believe fake news is harming children'southward well-being by increasing levels of feet and skewing children'due south' world view. And a report in the United States on schools from 12 states of the U.s.a. assessing 'civic online reasoning' – or the ability to judge the credibility of online information – constitute that when evaluating data on social media, children and young people are easily duped.

We know the impact of misinformation is pernicious and has real-world impacts. For example, thousands of the electric current generation of parents have been misled past misinformation spread through social media and mobile messaging apps about the safety of vaccines, prompting a wave of vaccine hesitancy and a worrisome resurgence of measles in high- and low-income countries alike, including French republic, India and the Philippines.

Misinformation campaigns have duped children into handing over money, giving away their information and being groomed and exploited for sex. And in the past few years, we've seen how misinformation can skew democratic contend, voter intentions, and sow doubt about other ethnic, religious or social groups – creating division and unrest. This is a global issue, with reports emerging from countries as various as Brazil, Ukraine and the United States where  sophisticated disinformation campaigns have necessitated the teaching of 'Learn 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 only the tip of the mail-truth iceberg. Every bit the technology to deceive improves, and verifying content becomes more difficult, the potential for lowered trust in institutions and social discord grows exponentially. For instance, with sophisticated video manipulation technology using AI-generated constructed media, it is condign easier to distort and manipulate reality, making it seem as though individuals have said things they have not, in and then-chosen 'deep fakes'. If these technologies advance, with no mitigating action to aid the next generation root out fakes, they have the potential to fundamentally undermine conviction in science and medicine, erode core institutions and beliefs, divide communities, and pose a grave threat to our democracies.

We can no longer residual on the naïve balls that truth has an innate upper hand against falsehood in the digital era, and then we must, as societies, build resilience against the daily deluge of falsity online. We should commencement by equipping young people with the power to understand who and what they can trust online, so they can become active, engaged citizens.

Why there is promise:

There is some evidence to propose that adults should place their trust in children and young people not to fall for fakes. A contempo research study published by the American Association for the Advocacy of Science plant that social media users over 65 shared virtually vii times as many articles from fake news domains as the youngest age grouping. While the reasons for this are as yet unexplained, it may point that a college level of digital and media literacy among 'digital natives' acts equally a protective filter. Nonetheless, it is clear we demand to work harder to prepare savvy young citizens to resist manipulation and retain a trusting connection to reliable and verifiable information and institutional noesis.

While social media platforms appear to be serious in their attempts to gainsay misinformation and work with news organizations to clearly characterization trusted sources, we cannot rely on the supply side for solutions. Children take a right to an teaching that prepares them for the world they will live in, and today, this includes much improved digital and media literacy, critical thinking and weighing upward prove. The Manager of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Evolution is including questions about distinguishing what is truthful from what is not true in the side by side circular of the influential international PISA tests, seeing disquisitional judgment as a global competency, and like initiatives could assistance to mainstream education and training in digital literacy skills that could be among the almost of import for the side by side generation. Moreover, we must work hard to build meaningful connections between young people and institutions, rebuilding trust, if we are to preserve democratic societies in the future.

A final discussion...

Finally, the biggest reason for promise is because you – the children and young people of today – are taking the lead on demanding urgent activeness, and empowering yourselves to learn nigh, and shape the world around you. You are taking a stand now, and nosotros are listening.

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

We desire to piece of work together with yous to find the solutions you demand to tackle the challenges of today, to build meliorate futures for yourselves and the world you will inherit.

Henrietta H. Fore
UNICEF Executive Director

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