Speech by the President of the Government at the closing ceremony of the presentation of the 'Digital Childhood 2025' study

Green Patio, Madrid

SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF SPAIN, PEDRO SÁNCHEZ

Good morning to you all. Thank you very much for inviting me to this event. First of all, I would like to greet the Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function, the Minister for Youth and Children, the President of UNICEF Spain, other authorities, ladies and gentlemen.

As has been said before, I believe that the report presented today is much more than the sum of the data. I think it is a deep x-ray of how our children and adolescents live, how they feel, how they grow up in this digital age. And so the first thing I would like to do is to thank the work of a very important company for this digital transformation that the Government of Spain is promoting, which is Red.es. Of course, we would also like to thank UNICEF, the University of Santiago de Compostela, the Council of Computer Engineering Colleges, the Ministry and the Ministries of Education of the different autonomous governments that have made the publication and preparation of this report possible.

Above all, I would like to thank the teachers who have participated, the families who have also participated and the more than 93,000 primary, secondary, baccalaureate and vocational training students who have taken part in the preparation of this important study. Because, as has been said, they are the protagonists.

Finally, if we look back, we can see that, while our grandparents and we ourselves sometimes communicated via the telephone in the homes we lived in, our sons and daughters play and interact via digital devices in what we know as the cloud. Living connected, therefore, is no longer an exception, it is the norm, and therefore we also have to think about it and operate on it.

Today children, as Gustavo said before, have their first mobile phone before the age of 11 and 92% of adolescents have at least one social network. But to simply accept that they are digital natives of this immense metropolis called the internet and, therefore, for the authorities, public institutions, families, teachers, and not ensure, therefore, that they grow up healthy and protected, as we have heard from members of the Advisory Council of UNICEF Spain, seems to me not to correspond to the responsibilities, to the duty, as the minister said earlier, of public institutions.

Clearly the challenge is enormous. It is perceived by many families, as mentioned above, as a wave that overwhelms us and to which we probably all think it is impossible to respond. But I believe that this is not the case. This report shows many of the challenges ahead, some of them very serious, of an extraordinary dimension. But it also tells us that there is room for optimism, for hope. That our children and young people have more tools today than yesterday to combat cyber-bullying, that they are increasingly taking measures against excessive exposure to mobiles and that they are demanding spaces for digital disconnection. I believe that there is also a parallel learning process, for young people and our children, regarding this digital transformation.

All in all, I think this study is a call for hope because it reflects the fact that we need to be aware of the challenges ahead of us. That action can be taken, that success can be achieved, that progress can be made, and reminds us that we have the tools to meet precisely these challenges.

Technology, we know, amplifies everything it touches, our capabilities, but also our weaknesses. It can be an engine of progress, as it is in many areas. Or, undoubtedly, the mirror of our shadows in a society as complex as ours.

The challenge, therefore, is to put it to the service of people, as we often say, and not the other way around. Because digital childhood or adolescence needs balance, like any other facet of our life, any moment of our life. A balance has to be struck between training and protection. That must also be achieved, between freedom and, of course, security. And in this shared responsibility, there are obviously the schools, there are the media, there are the large technological platforms, there are the institutions - the Government of Spain at the forefront - and there are also the families.

Therefore, I believe that, since 2020, we have been building this scaffolding that has allowed us to guarantee security and awareness by young people and children. For example, the LOMLOE, in 2020, the digital learning that forms part of this educational literacy, the CODI programme that we set up, with 200 million euros, which allows us to reach almost 1 million children throughout the country.

In short, I believe that Spain has gone from having guidelines and ethical codes to building a comprehensive legal framework. And we have conveyed this idea that we must not only keep our words, but that we must take action. In 2018, for example, we set by law the minimum age of digital consent at 14 years; in 2021, with the Law for the Protection of Children and Adolescents, we recognised the digital environment as a space where violence can also, unfortunately, be suffered, as we all know.

And that same year, the Digital Rights Charter that the Government of Spain promoted in the midst of the pandemic laid the foundations of a pioneering framework for the 21st century, and with the State Strategy for Children and Adolescents that we have set for 2023 to 2030, we have reinforced everything related to the digital protection of our minors.

Therefore, we have come a long way, but we have much more to do, and that is why I believe that the Government's current and future action is focused on three main areas that I would like to share with all of you.

The first, as Minister Óscar López referred to earlier, is that we must continue to extend the protection of minors in digital environments. There is the Organic Law for the Protection of Minors in Digital Environments. It is a pioneering law. We are a pioneering country at the forefront in Europe in this respect. It is a necessary law, which I believe also responds to an ethical requirement, which is the reference I made at the beginning of my speech, and that is that we must protect what is most valuable in our society, which is children and adolescents. Therefore, just as the minister has done, I also ask for the support of the parliamentary groups so that it passes with a broad parliamentary consensus above any other calculation, because what we are talking about is protecting children and adolescents, which is, therefore, the present and the future of our country. I believe that this law for the protection of minors in the digital environment will mark a turning point, adapting our legislation to a changing reality in 2025. We raise the minimum age for opening social networks to 16. The debate on the use of mobile devices at the age of 18 is not something that is being raised in Spain; it is true that it is being raised in other countries, in other countries, in other geographical contexts, but this is not the case in Spain. What we do propose is to raise the minimum age for opening or accessing social networks to 16. We also need to criminalise so-called 'deepfakes' in the Criminal Code. We have to introduce virtual restraining orders and we also have to introduce penalties for what is called 'grooming', which is that abominable sexual crime that consists of an adult posing as an adolescent in order to contact minors. We must therefore firmly say no more to this kind of behaviour, because no click can be worth more than a childhood or an adolescence. This is the first point. This law to which the minister referred earlier.

The second, I believe, is to combat bullying in all its forms. I believe that the data is very clear: one in four schoolchildren has suffered bullying, one in ten has suffered cyber-bullying, as was mentioned earlier by the speakers. Cases such as that of Sandra Peña in Seville have moved us all, all families, all Spanish citizens, and therefore cannot be repeated. We all have to do our utmost to ensure that this type of bullying and this type of dramatic situation does not happen again, both for her and for families. This country cannot afford to lose any more children and adolescents, victims, by the way, of bullying that no longer ends when school ends, but continues 24 hours a day through digital devices. Today a very real and destructive violence inhabits the web and the screens of our mobile devices, and it is no longer only exercised in the corridors or in the playgrounds as it was once referred to, but also in WhatsApp groups, in video games, in the comments on a photo. We need to act and be aware of the seriousness of this issue, including in relationships. One bit of data that most caught my attention is that one in three teenagers suffers from digital control or surveillance of their mobile phone by their partner, one in three. In short, it is a form of male violence that is born too early and requires a firm educational, social and family response. That is why we have to guarantee safe, healthy environments for our children, for our adolescents, regulating the use of mobile phones in schools, reinforcing paediatric protocols to detect the bullying that our young people may suffer early, the technological addictions, the emotional problems also derived from these technological addictions. In short, all these measures, all of them, are included in the Law on the Protection of Minors in Digital Environments, which we referred to earlier, and they will be accompanied, in addition to other commitments, by other actions that I would also like to share with all of you.

First, as mentioned above, the obligation for device manufacturers to incorporate effective parental control systems, something to which reference has also been made by the UNICEF Spain Advisory Council. Secondly, we need to impose firmer, more forceful sanctions against ultra-counterfeiting, with sexual content or vexatious purposes. And three, we have to promote critical digital education so that our children grow up free, with resources to be able to defend themselves and to be, obviously, much more capable of knowing what is information and what is not information. In short, to be more protected in order to be able to be or to be freer in digital environments. This is one of the conversations we have had with many of the large technology corporations. I had noted here in my text that we ask, no, no, we have to demand and we demand that the big technology companies do their part. Because when you talk to them, when you talk to them they are all good words. "If we are very conscious, if we want to do more". No, we demand that the big technology companies do their part once and for all with the same speed with which they innovate, that they be firm, that they be brave, that they be courageous and that they not look the other way when there are cases of cyberbullying because there is no business there, what there is there is a violation of human rights in which we all have to participate to put our feet on the wall.

Therefore, as the minister said earlier. In short, a comprehensive holistic strategy to protect the rights of our adolescents and our children. Finally, something that is gaining more and more attention from the public opinion, also from the public opinion, to which the Government of Spain, particularly during the pandemic, began to develop and elaborate not only laws and strategies, but also to dedicate economic resources, such as mental health. Mental health in this case for children and young people.

After the pandemic we put in place the mental health strategy of the National Health System. And its action plan. We are increasing the number of psychologists in the National Health System. We still have a lot of work to do in this whole area, but we are increasing resources and staffing. With an unprecedented investment. A total of 130 million euros transferred to the autonomous communities, which are the governments, the authorities, the institutions that have competences in this respect. In addition to this 130 million euros, another 17 million euros is specifically earmarked for suicide prevention.

I believe that these plans are making it possible, not only to place mental health and suicide at the centre of the debate for all of us who are concerned about this issue, but also to increase the number of clinical psychologists; to create specific child and youth care units; to incorporate mental health into the school environment; to develop suicide prevention programmes, also by sharing with teachers the ways of detecting the tendencies that some of our students may have towards suicide.

For the first time, therefore, Spain is addressing mental health as a state priority. And when I say State, I am talking about all the institutions, not only the Government of Spain, but also the regional governments, the provinces and, of course, the municipalities, with stable funding. And also, and this is very important in order to be able to track and measure and gauge the effectiveness of our policies, with measurable targets, to be accountable and to improve all the things we need to improve.

The regional governments have, I would say, unprecedented resources to be able to act in this area, and in our hands, in the hands of the central government, is cooperation, consensus, redoubling of efforts, an outstretched hand for a shared objective such as the protection of the mental health of our young people and our children.

One in ten children suffer from mobile phone addiction. Gustavo referred to this earlier. One in seven have symptoms of depression. And a fact that has caught my attention is that 8% show a high risk of suicide. And there is also a piece of information that seems to me to be very important from what can be extracted from this report. The fact is that 30% of adolescents who spend more than four hours a day in front of a screen feel that they will not be able to overcome their difficulties. Twice as many as those who use it less. Therefore, there is a direct correlation between screen use and feeling able to respond to the challenges that an adolescent, boy or girl may face in their daily lives.

That is why I believe that we must act together to recover a healthy and responsible freedom, which is shared, which is cared for and which, therefore, gives meaning to the lives of our children and adolescents.

To conclude. I conclude again by congratulating the institutions that have made this important study possible. As I was telling the minister, it is one of the most important studies that has been done at the national level. I think it would be relevant if we could also translate it into other languages so that it could transcend the Spanish-speaking community. As the president of UNICEF Spain said earlier, and I agree with him, technology is here to stay. It is undoubtedly positive, it must accompany us, it must help us to evolve, its potential is immense, but it obviously entails very serious risks.

We cannot, therefore, allow the digital space to be a sort of Wild West, where people insult, threaten with impunity or abuse without any consequences for those who do so. We cannot accept online what we would never allow offline as normal, especially when the potential victims are our children and adolescents. Because protecting our children is not about slowing down progress, I believe it is about making it humane. And this is what the Government of Spain is also working on, to ensure that technology does not replace the affection that is so necessary. Data is no substitute for empathy in decline, unfortunately. Let algorithms not replace community, family, education.

As president of the Government of Spain, I make a commitment to every mother, every father, every teacher and every young person that Spain will protect their childhood and adolescence. Because to protect them is to protect freedom, it is to protect equal opportunities in our country. So let's work together. We cannot fail our boys, our girls, our adolescents. So congratulations and let's continue on this important and necessary path.

(Transcript edited by the State Secretariat for Communication)