Police, educators, and CSOs discuss the results of three years of joint work with EU support to create a safe cyberspace for children

On December 10, 2024, Kyiv hosted the conference «Safe Cyberspace For Children: Creating Together», which summarises the project “Empowering Law Enforcement in Overcoming Online Violence against Children on the Internet”, which has been implemented by a Сonsortium of civil society organisations since January 2022 with the financial support of the European Union. Representatives of the EU in Ukraine, the National Police of Ukraine, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, local authorities, and civil society discussed the best practices for preventing and overcoming violence against children that were developed and tested within the project in pilot regions and will now be shared across Ukraine.

“The European Union prioritises the rights of every child around the world. For children in Ukraine, it is primarily about reducing the risks of violence, in particular in the digital environment, which has increased unprecedentedly during the war. It is all the more important now to work together and scale up the experience of authorities, educators, civil society and children to increase digital literacy, provide relevant materials, information and educational resources, and create a safe digital environment for young people”, comments Asier Santillian, Head of European Integration, Governance and Rule of Law, and Civil Society at the EU Delegation to Ukraine.

The project focused on three priorities: strengthening the capacity of police to address violence against children in cyberspace, developing regional cross-sectoral plans to prevent violence, and creating a child-friendly online tool for reporting harmful content online. And the partners were happy to share the results achieved despite the challenges of a full-scale invasion.

Thus, more than 2,000 police officers and cadets have already been trained in the programmes created in the framework of the project. And this experience will be expanded, as 6 higher education institutions with specific training conditions that train police officers throughout Ukraine have included them in their training and retraining curricula.

“Creating a safe cyberspace for children is not a result, but an ongoing process that can only be ensured by joint efforts. Digital technologies are evolving and improving, and in wartime children face new risks every minute, witness or suffer from crimes, and may commit offenses. Therefore, police officers are constantly learning and using new tools to respond to challenges in a timely manner, carry out preventive work and help protect the rights of every child”, Vasyl Bohdan, Head of the Juvenile Prevention Office of the National Police of Ukraine, said.

“For children to feel safe in the online space and be able to exercise their digital rights, they need adults to teach them how to do so. These adults include law enforcement officers. The proper training of police officers on child safety in cyberspace highly depends on the quality of the training materials. Therefore, the team of the Public Centre “Volunteer” together with partners, including teachers from higher education institutions with specific training conditions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, focused on developing modern tools and materials to increase the capacity of the National Police of Ukraine in this area”, comments Tetyana Zhuravel, Executive Director of the All-Ukrainian Public Centre “Volunteer”.

In the pilot regions of the project, working groups consisting of child rights protection specialists, social workers, and representatives of the national police have developed 3 regional action plans that lay the groundwork for a strategic approach to overcoming online violence against children and adolescents at the regional level.

“In addition, to assist specialists working with children on the spot, we have adapted and presented to stakeholders the well-known European online game tool for working with children, CYBERSAFE. The new generation is growing up in the world of digital technologies and the Internet. And this cannot be changed. Therefore, the adapted tools are mostly based on the principle of understanding, learning and informing. They help to ensure that an environment of adults and peers helps children who are interested in these topics or have experienced online abuse to find the right information, advice and support. More than 300 trained professionals have already tested it with more than 3000 children”, adds Natalia Lukyanova, project coordinator of the NGO “Labour and Health Social Initiatives”.

About 3,000 unique users have already applied to the child-friendly complaint mechanism, the Unsee non-bot, which was created as part of the project. 184 complaints have been recorded, 54 of which have been referred to the police.

“An important task we set for ourselves in the project was to make children active participants in the process. We wanted children not to be the object of adult efforts, but to be able to take care of their own safety in cyberspace and to realize the importance of overcoming harmful content. Together with representatives of Juvenile Prevention, we created the Unsee non-bot. Here, children can report (including anonymously) harmful content on the Internet, safely communicate with a psychologist, ask questions about their concerns, and be sure that their message will be responded to”, says Olena Shipilenko, project coordinator of the All-Ukrainian Charity “Child Well-Being Fund Ukraine”.

The project's awareness-raising events reached at least 500 thousand children and adults.

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The three-year project "Empowering Law Enforcement in overcoming online Violence against Children" is implemented by the All-Ukrainian Charity “Child Well-Being Fund Ukraine”, the All-Ukrainian Public Centre “Volonter” and the NGO "Labour and Health Social Initiatives" with more than 400 000 EUR of financial support from the European Union. The pilot regions are Vinnytsya and Lviv oblasts and Kyiv. The project's duration is 2022-2024. 

The project's products are available for download for free:

- Study Rapid assessment of the situation with children's cybersecurity (UA/EN)

- Manual ‘Training to counteract online sexual violence against adolescent girls. A manual for professionals working with children’. (UA)

- Booklet ‘Advice for parents and guardians on combating online sexual violence’. (UA)

- Two animated educational videos for children (girls and boys): What are the consequences of publishing a girl's naked selfie without her permission and What to do if your naked selfie is posted online.

- The international online tool for working with children CYBERSAFE (4 modules), which was developed by international and national experts, has been adapted into Ukrainian.

- Analytical Report Approaches to Combating Child Abuse on the Internet.pdf