Religious leaders, civil authorities, and representatives of technology companies will meet from November 14-15, 2019, at the Casina Pio IV, headquarters of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, to participate in the meeting “Promoting Digital Child Dignity: from Concept to Action) in order to analyze initiatives intended to provide effective protection to minors in the digital universe.
The event will open with a papal audience on 14 November in the Clementine Hall and will close with a speech by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin on November 15.
The meeting is jointly organized by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, the Child Dignity Alliance and the Interfaith Alliance for Safer Communities, and is in continuity with the World Congress on “Child Dignity in the Digital World”, held at the Pontifical Gregorian University in 2017, and with the “Interreligious Conference of the Interfaith Alliance for Safer Communities: Child Dignity Online” meeting held in Abu Dhabi in 2018.
As the title “From Concept to Action” states, the meeting is not merely intended to set out the problems, also to suggest and support targeted initiatives and action plans.
The eighty participants, all involved in the field, include representatives of international organizations, NGOs, technological companies, economic operators, politicians, jurists, and religious leaders. There will be speeches by H.H. Sheikh Saif Bin Zayed al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior of the United Arab Emirates; H.M. Queen Silvia of Sweden; the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Professor Dr. Ahmed el-Tayeb; Rabbi David Rosen; and Ms. Najat Maalla M’jid, representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Violence Against Children. A message from His All Holiness Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople will be read on the day of inauguration.
The meeting is expected to end with a joint statement.
View the preliminary draft booklet below:
Digital Child Dignity 2019_Preliminary Draft booklet
