‘A Voice is Not Enough’: Championing Children’s Rights Online

Image: grassrootdiplomat.org

Beeban Kidron is passionate about the role stories play in the development of identity and our sense of what it is to be human. In her brilliant keynote address at the Children’s Media Conference in Sheffield this July, she laid out what she had learned in a career as a screen director, navigating between taboo breaking stories (Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit) and pop culture (Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason). But after 35 years as a director, the course of her life changed while she was making InRealLife – a documentary about teenagers and the Internet. Her revelation in the film – that the digital environment had never been created for children, and that regulations and protections were important – was not something that Silicon Valley or Government leaders initially wanted to hear. But it led to her establishing the 5 Rights Framework, which articulates the existing rights of children and young people, for a digital world.

Baroness Kidron’s three life lessons were:

1. It’s not enough to have a voice, we must also have rights, and fight for the rights of others, who must also have a voice.

2. Those in charge do not always have our best interests at heart.

3. It’s not how to use a camera that’s important, but what you use it for.

Watch Beeban Kidron’s Creative Keynote address below:

To find more content from the Children’s Media Conference, visit www.thechildrensmediaconference.com.