From deepfakes to AI-generated child sexual abuse materials, online threats are rapidly evolving and governments are racing to respond. What protections do children actually need in today’s digital world? And how can young people, policymakers, and tech companies co-create digital spaces that are safe and informed by children’s actual experiences? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Saskia Blume, Chief of Child Protection of UNICEF Malaysia.
00:00Hi, welcome back to Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris. Let's continue our conversation about
00:16keeping children safe online amid rising digital risks to our children. Now, among those calling
00:25for more effective, more child-centered responses to this is Saskia Blum, who is Chief of Child
00:32Protection at UNICEF Malaysia. She joins me from the sidelines of the 2025 ASEAN ICT Forum on Child
00:41Online Protection. Saskia, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us today. Let's start
00:48with really understanding what urgent online risks children are facing today. I mean, the world is
00:54such a different place now. And earlier, Han mentioned the risk of synthetic risks. So talk
01:03to me a little bit about that, about where you see the most urgent online risks facing our children
01:09today. Sure. And first of all, thank you so much for having me again, Melissa. It's a pleasure to be
01:15here. I think it's important to make the point that children are facing a lot of new risks linked to
01:24being online, but also some of the risks they're facing are not necessarily new. And that will be
01:28important when we consider what kind of responses we need to keep children safe online and offline.
01:36So in terms of online, we know that one in 25 children in Malaysia have experienced online sexual
01:44abuse or exploitation. So that could be sextortion or having your sexual image shared without your consent.
01:51one in 25 is more than one in every classroom, right? And then we know that AI generated child sexual
02:01abuse images are exploding. So last year, we had 7,000 images being reported globally, right over the
02:10whole of 2024. And now in the first six months of 2025, we have over 440,000 images. So it's developing
02:20really rapidly. And at the same time, children also face have been facing a risk offline, you know, as
02:30long as we can think, right. And again, looking at Malaysia, one in seven adult women, one in seven
02:37adult men in Malaysia have experienced sexual violence in their childhood. And so it's important to keep that
02:43in mind because we're moving along the online, offline continuum of, you know, for children, it
02:49doesn't matter as an online or offline, they don't make such a distinction, it's their life that is
02:54affected. And we need to equip them to be safe online and offline.
02:58Saskia, you mentioned that some of these threats or some of these risks are not new. But are there still
03:05protection gaps that UNICEF is concerned about in terms of addressing some of these risks?
03:13Absolutely. I mean, I think the first really concerning insight that we have is that half of the children that have experienced online exploitation and abuse have not revealed this to anyone, right? There was no one trusted in their life that they confided in to seek help. And also, when we know that, you know, one in seven
03:43adult women, one in nine adult men have experienced sexual violence before the dawn of the internet, the majority of them have also not confided in anyone. So how do we create a space? How do we create outlets? How do we how do we create, you know, reporting lines that are trusted by young people? So they can seek help when needed. And ideally, before things escalate, you know, when they already start having a strange feeling about someone or
04:12something they see something they see online, how can they escalate this and seek help before, before things get worse?
04:19Okay, but when we think about having those measures or those guardrails or safeguards, how do we think about reconciling those protections with children's rights, children's rights to digital participation, digital expression, digital learning, living some of some part of their lives online? And I do wonder where you might see the trade offs in that are we being too reactive in our, and this is the
04:49term Han used earlier in our moral panic to address the issue.
04:53Yes, I think it's important to say that there shouldn't be a trade off between rights, right? When we look at the Convention on the Rights of the Child, where Malaysia is also, you know, one signatory, and it's the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world.
05:09The right to be free from violence is a right, and we're very concerned about that. But so is the freedom of expression, the right to privacy, access to information, all of these rights are important to fulfill for children.
05:24And that's why it's important to equip children, families, to be to be able to navigate risk, whether they're online or offline. And at the same time, to also ensure that online being online becomes a more safe experience. So how do we do that by safety by design, right? So really building it into platforms, social media apps that we're thinking about how to keep children safe.
05:53All right. Yeah. Tell me more about safety by design. I'm hearing so much about it lately. And it's increasingly used as a standard. What does that mean in terms of embedding protections at the platform level, at the product level, and not just reacting to harm when it's happened, unfortunately?
06:14Sure, I think, you know, I think, you know, I think the default for many products is not to necessarily think about safety by design, right? Only if we know that specifically geared towards children.
06:29That's when safety by design kicks in more commonly, but also not always. And that's a huge issue, because one in three internet users globally is a child. So the default thinking should be no matter what your intention is, and no matter who you design your product for, children will see it, children will access it.
06:48And so safety by design, for example, can be, you know, you have default privacy settings, you have very easy reporting channels, you know, on your, on your site or within your app.
07:01It can also be a bit more complex responses like hashtagging of known child sexual abuse materials. So this is something that is free to access for big companies.
07:15They can actually look at their websites and use the hashtags that automatically filters images that are uploaded for known child sexual abuse materials.
07:26So these are things that can be built into the development process and if not added on later, but ideally it should be from the get go.
07:35You mentioned earlier a troubling statistic that so many children don't even tell anyone something concerning that has happened to them.
07:44When we think about safety by design, when we think about having those reporting channels, all of that means nothing if the child themselves doesn't know how to use it or doesn't trust it.
07:55So I know UNICEF has long championed the participation of children and adolescents in shaping policies that affect them. Talk to me a little bit about that.
08:07How can young people be meaningfully involved in the co-creation of digital safety solutions that affect them, that are meant to keep them safe?
08:17Right. Yes. I mean, again, going back to the convention, the rights of the child, children should be consulted in all decisions that affect them and everything that touches their lives.
08:29Right. And I can maybe I give a very give two very concrete examples of what that can look like in practice.
08:36So coming back to the issue that half of the children did not confide in anyone.
08:43What does that say about the reporting mechanisms that we have in place? Right.
08:49They're not necessarily co-designed with young people. They're not in a language that children can understand.
08:55And they're not maybe they're not using the channels that children would necessarily access. Right.
09:02Australia is a good example for co-designing reporting channels with young people.
09:11So really looking what is the what how do you how would you want to access help?
09:16What is the language you want to hear? How do you generate trust? Right.
09:21What is an accessible way for you to for you to access help and what is your expectation of it?
09:27And so this is something that, you know, it's it's very straightforward.
09:31It's a consultation process. See what is the what is the current mechanisms?
09:36How would you ideally like to see it designing it together so that we, you know, have less children suffering in silence and seeking help earlier?
09:44Another example is as we're speaking here from the ASEAN ICT Forum on Chart Online Protection that has actually been co-designed with young people.
09:54So this starts from what are we talking about? You know, what is on the agenda from running sessions with young people from having young people also on the sidelines meet decision makers.
10:06So that, you know, from the get go. And we had also young people on the steering committee to really discuss every step of the forum and what is being discussed and how we're discussing it.
10:18I love that. I love that they are part of the process every step of the way.
10:23So for our audience watching tonight who may be themselves either young person or a parent of a young person or even a policymaker, what is it that you would like them to bear in mind when we think about the need to translate the discussions in those conference rooms, the commitments that we've made on paper?
10:45How do these all translate to safer online experiences for children? What would you like us to keep in mind, Saskia?
10:54I think maybe three things. One is it's a shared accountability between everyone to keep children safe online and offline.
11:03I think two parents in particular and also those that are in the lives of children and young people to create a space where young people feel confident and confiding in you seek out conversations.
11:17Be curious about your children's online behavior and discuss, you know, how to stay safe online as well.
11:24And then thirdly, it's really around how do we increase safety by design also with local industry in Malaysia, many of whom who are here as well and who are very interested.
11:37And so we'd love to continue that conversation with them as well.
11:40Right. Saskia, thank you so much for joining us on the show.
11:43I hope you have a wonderful conference ahead. Thank you for taking time to speak with us today.
11:48Thank you so much.
11:49Thank you, Melissa.
11:51That was Saskia Bloom, Chief of Child Protection at UNICEF Malaysia.
11:56And that wraps up this episode of Consider This.
11:58I'm Melissa Idris signing off for the evening.
12:01Thank you so much for watching and good night.
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