Zeina Ismail-Allouche
CSLP Research Coordinator Zeina Ismail-Allouche examines how we can better protect children and adolescents from digital exploitation in a new op-ed published by Daraj.
In Protecting Children from Digital Exploitation… in Their Absence?, Ismail-Allouche questions whether measures such as age restrictions and social media bans adequately address the risks young people face online. Instead, she argues for an approach that places children and adolescents at the centre of conversations about their own digital safety.
Drawing on a recent UNICEF study of nearly 21,000 young internet users across 21 countries, Ismail-Allouche highlights the prevalence of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation and abuse. Of particular concern, she notes, is that more than four in ten young people who experienced such harm told no one about it. For Ismail-Allouche, this raises a broader question about whether children have relationships and institutions they trust enough to turn to when they need help.
The article explores the limits of blanket bans and parental surveillance while calling for greater critical digital literacy, stronger regulation of technology companies and more support for families, schools and communities. Ismail-Allouche also stresses that children have knowledge about their own digital lives that should inform the policies intended to protect them.
“Then we build policies with them, not only about them,” she writes, arguing that meaningful protection requires both listening to young people and sharing responsibility for creating safer digital environments.