Government digital policies and children’s rights in Uruguay: An assessment framed by the UN CRC’s dimensions of provision, protection and participation

Abstract

By 2015, one-third of internet users around the world were under the age of 18, almost half of which were living in the so-called ‘Global South’. In light of this, literature from the field of children’s online rights has become increasingly critical of the lack of engagement in internet governance discussions globally with the United Nations (UN) Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC). Revisions of the CRC for its 25th anniversary influenced scholarship proposing using it as a guiding framework to identify and regress current deficits amongst its pillars of provision, protection and participation. This has triggered debates by evidencing how dominant strategies have been overly focused on facilitating access, with issues of online protection often being ignored and at times even hindering the almost absent considerations to child’s right to participation. Framed within a national Digital Agenda initially based on a One-Laptop-Per-Child program (Plan Ceibal), the Uruguayan government managed to effectively bridge the ‘digital divide’ in access to laptops and internet amongst its youngest population. This yielded significant impacts on low-income households and its achievements allowed the country to receive frequent praise by International Organisations. This study consists of an analysis of government digital policies focused on children in Uruguay between 2009 and 2019. To facilitate this, the CRC was used as a framework to categorise key features of the principal strategies that have been implemented. It argues that while great advances have been made in terms of digital access, this has not been sufficiently accompanied with comprehensive and child-centred solutions that encompass regulations and children and adult digital education. These are fundamental aspects for promoting a critical engagement with digital technologies and tailoring strategies for digital policies championing the best interest of children and Uruguay’s digital future.