Ensure Justice 2024: Keeping Our Children Safe Online

The first Friday and Saturday of March, 2024, the Global Center for Women and Justice’s annual Ensure Justice Conference took place. This year’s theme was, “Keeping Our Children Safe Online.”

Friday, March 1st was the first day of the annual conference. Guests arrived eager to lsiten to the keynote speakers. Of these keynote speakers was Ezequiel Escobar Bellshaw, the Executive Director of Fiet Gratia, an NGO (non-governmental organization) in Madrid, Spain. Ezequiel Escobar Bellshaw’s segment at Ensure Justice highlighted the importance of keeping our children safe online, and the key factors to do so successfully.

Along with Ezequiel Escobar Bellshaw, the conference included a student led panel in which each students described their experience with social media, and the dangers that have come about through it. The students commented on their first-hand experiences and provided their insight on how to improve online safety for youth.

Another speaker was Susan Kennedy, from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Susan Kennedy touched on the importance of changing our dialect surrounding the crimes.

Susan Kennedy emphasized that “child pornography” does not exist, and it is actually child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Susan Kennedy provided statistics, citing that 36.2 million reports were made to the cyber tippling but she also highlighted prevention strategies.

Enid Bozic was another speaker featured at Ensure Justice who spoke about the importance of the EARN It Act, Eliminate Abusive Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act, which aids in the removal of CSAM from the internet. Enid Boric also spoke about the dangers of specific games that children use, like Roblox, and explained that this all starts with the communication we have with our children.

Angie Bennet, another speaker, talked about online safety concerns, and how online dating, social media, gaming, and more can be dangerous. Similarly, Corey Thomas spoke about juveniles and social media in Orange County, drawing on the drastic differences between reports of CSAM from 1998 and 2020.

Celina Gasparian who works with Homeland Security, focused on what we can do to keep our children safe online, highlighting the importance of a government and community approach and prevention. Janis Prince, Jeremy Davis, and Kendra Davis also focused on a community based approach to internet safety.Dr. Kristen Hughes spoke about prevention as well.

Dr. Shauntina Sorrells focused on human centered design. A panel which featured individuals from the government and prosecution sphere: Arthur Scott, Tamika Williams, and Madeline Rodriguez, explained what groups of children are most vulnerable and the importance of restoring individuals and community.

President Beals at the Ensure Justice conference. Photo Credit: The GCWJ team

On Saturday, there were a variety of workshops on topics pertaining to youths’ online safety, all hosted by speakers who are experts in their different fields. One such workshop was titled “Safety and Social Influencing” held by Miss Katie, a Gen Z influencer and vlogger with over 200K followers on YouTube. In this workshop, she shared how her and her parents have kept her safe while online during her years of influencing, especially as a young person who shares a lot of her life publicly online.

Another workshop, “Keeping Kids Safe from Online Predators” hosted by detective Mark Dent, focused on the ways that children are exploited online and how parents can take practical steps to protect them from predators that take advantage of online spaces in which children are often present.

One of the bilingual workshops, titled “Sexual Exploitation: How to Protect Your Children” was hosted by Fiona Bellshaw, founder of Fiet. There were many other workshops on Saturday, most of them focused on how to protect children from being exploited online.

Youth panel at the Ensure Justice conference. Photo Credit: The GCWJ team

Overall, the 2024 Ensure Justice conference was a success. There were over 200 people who attended, both live and virtually. It is crucial that we educate ourselves and others about the dangerous reality of online exploitation. Any child can be a victim, and any adult can be a predator, so prevention through education goes a long way in ensuring justice for today’s youth.