Tuesday 12 February 2008
200 Young people are going IYAC(ing) this summer are you on board?
UK to host first law enforcement-backed global youth advisory congress on child safety and security on the internet
Microsoft, Virgin Media and Visa Europe are the first to step forward to sponsor a unique venture that will see up to 200 young people and children from across the world coming to London this summer.
For the first time ever, delegates aged between 8-16 years - all specifically chosen to represent their countries – will come to the UK to hold the inaugural International Youth Advisory Congress (IYAC). The focus will be online safety and security. They will come from across Europe, the US, Australia, Canada, Africa and Asia as well as England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The initiative is being led and developed by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre - the UK’s dedicated organisation for tackling the sexual abuse of children. What is more, it is supported by a global alliance of law enforcement agencies focused on tackling the sexual exploitation of children and going under the title of the Virtual Global Taskforce (VGT).
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre is the UK’s representative on the VGT. It is joined by partners from Australia, Canada, the US, Italy and Interpol.
All of the organisations stepping forward to support the idea – of which Microsoft, Virgin Media and Visa Europe are amongst the first – are providing sponsorship, in-kind resources and specialist expertise.
The event – which will run in July and is believed to be the first of its kind in the world – is designed to give young people an opportunity to work with those responsible for their protection from across all sectors – governments, the police, child protection communities and charities as well as the online and mobile industries.
The outcome will be an initial roadmap of solutions and possibilities – A Children and Young People’s Global Online Charter – that will allow sectors to sign up and follow a strategic plan that ultimately will be presented to the UN as part of the 2008 Resolution of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Tracy Edwards MBE, who shot to fame when she managed and skippered the first all female crew to race around the world, is Project Manager of the event for CEOP. She said:
IYAC is without a doubt the most exciting project I have ever worked on: I truly feel as if I am a very small part in a very big, solution-based project which will change child protection forever.
In 2007 I met with the NSPCC to ask about working in child protection and they introduced me to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, the UK's law enforcement agency dealing with child sex abuse and online grooming. When I visited the Centre and saw the work going on to make children safer I knew that was where I wanted to be. CEOP's totally holistic approach to child protection is unique and inspiring.
In September I was seconded to CEOP to project-manage the International Youth Advisory Congress (IYAC), which will bring children together from across the globe to advise police, government, industry and charities about how to make new technologies safer. This is the biggest challenge I have ever undertaken and I am very much looking forward to working with CEOP to make the online environment safer forever.
The spirit of IYAC is summed up by Anton, aged 16:
The International Youth Advisory Congress is a really cool idea with young people from all over the world to getting together and helping people like the CEOP Centre to make everyone safer online. I'm really looking forward to it - not only to meet new people but 'cause it'll be great to make a difference too.
Jim Gamble is chair of the Virtual Global Taskforce and heads up the UK’s CEOP Centre:
THow often do we hear people say that they want to listen to young people and then never actually do? How many times do people say they are taking the online safety and security of children seriously only then to put those young people at risk?
Our aim is to cut the rhetoric and to give children and those responsible for their protection a real platform that ultimately will help dissect what is needed to make the online environment that much safer and more secure. After all, young people are the natives of the online world, it is they who have made the virtual and the offline a converged reality and it is they who should have a real say in how they want to be protected.
But this is not about bouncing a young person’s agenda on to unsuspecting sectors – far from it. It is about inclusion and opportunity and that is why we are making our announcement today – EU Safer Internet Day. Major corporations and many others behind the scenes have already stepped forward with their commitment, with their expertise, with their resources in making this initiative a reality. Our intention is to start small and build up over the years.
So if you are out there, running online environments, overseeing corporations that want to protect children then the door is open to you. We will soon be announcing our venues and we will be laying out more details once our delegates have closed their polls. So get on board and visit IYAC.NET to find out more. Join us IYAC(ing) this summer.
Venues across London as well as specific details on how the event will shape up will be announced once specially designed polls and workshops run with young people for young people have closed. Further information and regular updates on the IYAC initiative can be found at iyac.net.
Notes to Editors
1. A full sheet of links and endorsements from Microsoft, Virgin Media and VISA is attached to this press notice. Specific media contacts for each organisation are also included.
2. The Virtual Global Taskforce (VGT) was set up in 2003 in order to build a global response to tackling the sexual exploitation of children. The UK, US, Australia and Interpol were all founding partners and were recently joined by Italy. Full details on the work of the VGT can be found at www.virtualglobaltaskforce.com.
3. The CEOP Centre is the UK’s dedicated policing organisation focused on tackling the sexual abuse of children. It delivers a totally holistic approach combining as it does specialists from across UK and international police forces as well as the wider child protection community such as the NSPCC and industry such as Microsoft, SERCO, VISA, Ford, Vodafone, Volkswagen and Lexis Nexis.
Further Information
All Media Enquiries for the UK:
Clive Michel, Miriam Rich, Vicky Gillings, Hannah Bickers
0870 000 3434