Briefing: Ai Kihara-Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur on sale, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children.

Thank you, colleagues. Thank you all for joining us both here and online to this press conference. As you know, the Third Committee of the General Assembly is in session and discussing human rights issues and will be hearing reports by Special Rapporteurs, Commissions of Inquiry, Fact-Finding Missions for the next few weeks. We're happy to be joined today by Ms. I. Kiara Hunt, the UN Special Rapporteur on the sale, sexual exploitation, and sexual abuse of children, who has just presented her inaugural report to the General Assembly. She will make brief remarks, and then we'll take your questions. Special rapporteurs, as you know, are independent human rights experts who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. They serve in their individual capacity and are independent from any government or organization, including the UN Human Rights Office and the UN. And with that, over to you, Special Rapporteur. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I have just reported my first report, my vision report, as the Special Rapporteur on the sale, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children to the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee. My report builds on the foundation of my predecessor's work and asks a fundamental question: How do we turn our commitments into protection that children can actually experience? As I wrote in my report, our challenge is to implement international standards through protection systems that are child-centred, rights-based and informed by children's lived realities. We must approach protection as a continuum, encompassing prevention, response, rehabilitation, justice, reparation and reintegration. First, we must invest more seriously in prevention. This means addressing not only individual risks, but also the conditions that enable exploitation, including poverty, displacement, discrimination, social exclusion, unequal power relationships, and weak protection systems. Governments have primary obligations, but businesses, technology companies, schools, health professionals, and communities also share responsibility. Second, we must strengthen accountability. Children need safe ways to disclose harm, trauma-informed investigations, and justice processes that do not punish them. They also need effective remedies. Reparation remains an underdeveloped part of child protection, yet it is essential to recovery and the restoration of children's rights. Third, we must respond to rapidly evolving technologies and methods of exploitation. Technology enables perpetrators to reach, groom, and exploit children across platforms and borders, including through emerging forms of abuse facilitated by artificial intelligence. Detection, investigation, and protection must keep pace through effective cooperation among states, law enforcement, child protection authorities, technology companies, and civil society, while safeguarding children's rights and privacy. Fourth, we must reach children who fall outside existing protection systems, including children without legal identity, children in street situations, children deprived of parental care, and children affected by migration, displacement, and crises. Fear of detention, removal, or other consequences must never prevent children from seeking help. Fifth, I intend to further examine different forms of exploitation, power relationships, and abuse of vulnerability. Exploitation may be facilitated through trust, authority, or dependency rather than overt force. We must therefore examine the conditions shaping children's apparent agreement, including grooming, coercion, poverty, and displacement. Children must never be held responsible for the exploitation to which they have been subjected to. Finally and importantly, we must make children's participation meaningful. Children, including those with lived experience of exploitation and abuse, are not merely beneficiaries of protection. Their experiences are also knowledge. Their participation must be safe, informed, voluntary, and guided by the principle of doing no harm. Where these conditions can be ensured, children should help shape the laws, policies, and programs affecting their lives. The sale, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children are complex, hidden and increasingly transnational. They cannot be addressed by one institution or one country, nor can 21st century exploitation be met with systems designed for yesterday's realities. We need cross-sectoral and cross-border cooperation, sustained political commitment, investment and accountability. Above all, we must continuously ask whether our systems work from the child's perspectives. My vision for this mandate is ambitious but practical, to translate international human rights standards into real protection in children's lives. I was pleased to have a constructive conversation with member states in the earlier interactive dialogue at the third committee on the practical ways to provide effective protection to children. And part of the questions asked from the member states were about online, digital and AI induced abuse materials and also on a cooperation that is necessary for further protecting children's rights. So I thank you very much and I'll take questions.

Thank you, Professor. We'll go to questions. Any questions in the room? Can you please introduce yourself to the Special Rapporteur and your outlet and then take your question, please?

Sure. Thank you very much. My name is Muna Aoutoul. I'm with Al Quds Al Arabi. First, we would like to ask about AI-generated sexual deepfakes involving children. We know that recently UNICEF has reported at least 1.2 million children across 11 countries had their children manipulated into sexually explicit deepfakes in a single year. Our question for you is, what legal obligations should states impose on AI developers and online platforms to prevent this abuse and ensure justice?

Oh, OK. Thank you. Thank you very much for the question. So with regard to states, states imposing states, holding companies accountable, the digital and AI platforms accountable, the states need to make sure that those companies are themselves responsible for designing the digital platforms and tools in a safe way, safety by design. So the default is safe. Default for children is a safe access to information and the Uh, the children are not to be blamed for, uh, accessing information and then, uh, as a result, uh, groomed into or exploited, um, as a result, um, uh, sometimes get into exploited, exploitation. So the states, this is an area that is developing in terms of holding the companies accountable for their design, for their conduct, and not to go back to the children or their parents or guardians to have to put safeguard themselves, the safeguard and the protection of children should be in the design of the digital platform and digital tools. In terms of responding, how to find safe ways to allow children to access to digital form. I have part of my priorities is to have children tell us how, where they find a safe route, what kind of digital platforms they use, when they face risks, how, what is necessary for their lives, how do they find safe reporting mechanisms, you know, how, where do they feel safe to report when there's some risks in a digital platform, what kind of responses are effective for children. So those things are impossible without children being involved in telling us, especially with the rapid development of AI and digital technology.

Can I add another question, please? Now we move to Gaza and the West Bank. The Secretary-General 2026 reports on children and armed conflict. It states that the UN verified incidents of conflict-related sexual violence, including acts amounting to torture against children in Gaza and in the West Bank. What legal mechanisms are you advocating to ensure these violations are independently investigated? And thank you.

OK, so I think to start answering the question, I would start from the mandate. So there is a separate mandate on a special representative secretary general looking at the violence-- sorry, children in armed conflict. So in her report, if I remember correctly, they did talk about the responses. But as a human rights advocate and special rapporteur on sexual exploitation, sexual abuse of children, as such, it doesn't... So as a mandate, I can address can address all situations. I think the only thing is that there are priorities that we try to prioritize out of all the things that we do. So that's a sort of a statement before answering. Yeah, I think, but maybe that's better to end there. I'm not sure. Because sexual violence as torture in an armed conflict, of course, they are human rights violation, but also a violation of international humanitarian law. And it can be also, if the threshold is met, it can be international crime. But different situations will have different mechanisms. So the standards are the same, but I think your question was what kind of mechanisms. I think I would, because of the different restrictions and different thresholds to meet different, how to say, different mechanisms, I don't think I'm in a position to answer the question as to what specific mechanism is most suited to answering that question. Yeah, that particular situation.

Thank you very much. Maybe I should reframe my question, because in your opening remarks, you mentioned that there has to be a stronger cooperation between states and institutions, because obviously, they need to make sure that children are protected. So maybe you could elaborate a little bit more on some recommendations you can give us as an expert on How can these violations be investigated in different conflict zones, not necessarily just in Gaza and the West Bank, but in different regions, to ensure that these children and their families have access to justice?

Okay. Yeah. So I think the starting point is that it's a complementary system, so where there are sexual violence as torture, meaning this is one of the grave crimes. in which case, so there are national mechanisms, if that doesn't work, or if they are not willing, or if they are unable, then there are international mechanisms. But before that, there can be also quasi-judicial mechanisms, such as a commission of inquiry, or fact-finding missions, which can, and it's not a court, but which can investigate and make a conclusion, make conclusive recommendations as to what these acts may amount to and what kind of accountability measures and reparation measures should be put in place. So that's one way of cooperation between international, or it can be regional, but international and national mechanisms in seeking accountability and reparation.

Thank you, Special Rapporteur. Do you have a follow-up?

No, I just wanted to thank you very much.

Thank you. Any other questions in the room? Any other questions online? I don't see any. So I thank you all for joining us. Thank you, the Special Rapporteur, for briefing us today, and I'll see you in the next briefing. Thank you.