This week, The Duchess of Edinburgh traveled to Brussels to champion child safety in the digital world. She was joined by UK Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, at an event co-hosted by the European Parliament Intergroup on Children’s Rights.
Her Royal Highness was in Brussels as Patron of the NSPCC and Plan International UK. This isn’t the first overseas visit that Sophie has conducted as Patron of Plan International UK, having recently conducted engagements in New York.
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Addressing an audience of senior European and international decision-makers, as well as representatives from the tech sector, Her Royal Highness delivered a powerful keynote speech highlighting the urgent need for stronger safeguards against child sexual exploitation and abuse.
‘Today, children everywhere in the world are not only falling victim to adults wishing to groom them but are exposed to an enormous amount of dangerous, harmful and inappropriate content’.
The Duchess emphasised the dangers posed by emerging technologies, particularly generative AI, in facilitating the creation and spread of child sexual abuse material. She noted the alarming statistic that 79% of teenagers are already using generative AI for learning purposes, while also being exposed to misleading or harmful content, including misinformation from chatbots on topics such as mental health, suicide, and grooming.
HRH The Duchess of Edinburgh and Minister for Safeguarding @jessphillips emphasised the importance of stronger international action against child sexual exploitation and abuse at the @Europarl_EN today. #endCSEA pic.twitter.com/XUx5J9pneP
— UK Mission to the EU 🇬🇧🇪🇺 (@UKMisBrussels) March 26, 2025
“As I speak, AI is being used to generate hyper-realistic child sexual abuse imagery at scale,” she stated, underscoring the severity of the issue. She added how ‘this underlines the corrosive impact of online abuse and scale of the challenge we face in tackling it. It is a challenge we need to tackle urgently, particularly given the emergence of generative AI’.
She went on to stress that while technological advancements can be beneficial, they also pose serious risks, making it imperative to act swiftly in order to protect young people online.
The Duchess of Edinburgh speaking in Brussels this week. (Royal Family)
Technology companies, she argued, hold significant power to drive positive change by designing services that are safe from inception and by taking a proactive stance in tackling child online harm. She urged industry leaders to recognise their responsibility in fostering safer digital environments. She noted that the technology industry is in ‘uniquely powerful position to promote positive change’ but ‘it will take a collective effort by all, including Governments, technology companies, regulators and legislators, civil society and law enforcement to make it happen’.
‘We must also listen to the young people themselves who I know are keen to be the architects of their futures. By understanding how and why they interact online and amongst their community, it will help shape our responses’.
In addition to her keynote address, The Duchess of Edinburgh took part in a roundtable discussion with global child rights NGOs. The conversation focused on the evolving nature of online threats, the importance of incorporating victim and survivor knowledge in combating abuse, and the need for a collective societal approach in addressing these pressing issues.
In 2021, the then-Countess of Wessex echoed the sentiments that she stated this week, where she addressed the ‘devastating consequences’ online child exploitation has on young people’s lives on Tuesday.Sophie noted how the internet ‘presents us all with enormous and positive opportunities to engage with each other online in ways we have never been able to do before’.
‘However, this virtual opening also presents new and very dangerous threats to our children, including the way that the internet enables predators to commit truly horrific abuse within what should be the sanctity and safety of a child’s own home.’
