Study on Needs and Risks in the Field of Digital Safety of Children and Adolescents in Ukraine
AI Summary
The study reviews digital safety risks for children in Ukraine, highlighting the increased vulnerability due to the ongoing conflict. It identifies various online threats while calling for enhanced empirical data to better understand the impact of digital practices on child safety amid war.
Country: Ukraine Source: Finn Church Aid Please refer to the attached file. The digital environment is one of the key spaces of everyday life for children and adolescents, bringing together learning, communication, leisure, and the formation of social ties. The use of social media, messaging applications, video platforms, and online games represents a stable and intensive practice for the majority of school-aged children in Ukraine. At the same time, the digital environment creates conditions for the emergence of a range of risks related to safety, psychoemotional well-being, privacy, and the social vulnerability of children and adolescents. In existing international and national studies, digital risks for children typically include exposure to harmful or traumatic content, cyberbullying, online grooming, unwanted contact with adults, engagement in risky online practices, as well as violations of privacy and personal data security. A synthesis of available sources indicates that, in terms of typology, these risks in Ukraine generally correspond to European and global trends; however, the Ukrainian context is characterised by an elevated level of vulnerability among children due to the combination of social, psychological, and security-related factors. The full-scale war plays a particularly significant role in shaping this vulnerability. Forced displacement, prolonged periods of distance or blended learning, fragmentation of social ties, increased psycho-emotional burden, and unequal access to adult support all intensify risks for children in the digital environment. Available analytical sources indicate that internally displaced children, children from families with lower levels of digital literacy, as well as adolescents in early and middle adolescence, face a substantially higher likelihood of encountering online risks compared to average levels. At the same time, a review of available data reveals a number of structural limitations. Statistical information on digital risks for children in Ukraine remains fragmented and is largely focused on specific manifestations, such as school bullying, while other forms of online threats—grooming, manipulative contacts, privacy violations, and online exploitation—are insufficiently reflected in official data. In addition, information on differences in children’s experiences by age, gender, region of residence, and the presence of vulnerability factors remains limited. This constrains the development of a comprehensive understanding of the scale and nature of digital risks at the community level. In this context, there is a clear need for empirical data that combine quantitative assessments of the prevalence of digital practices and risks with a deeper understanding of the experiences of children, adolescents, and adults involved in systems of protection and support. Such an opportunity is provided by the integration of quantitative and qualitative approaches, which makes it possible to identify overarching patterns while also analysing the contexts in which behavioural strategies and responses to digital threats are formed. This study is aimed at a comprehensive analysis of needs and risks related to the digital safety of children and adolescents in Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Odesa oblasts. It covers both children and adolescents themselves and key adult groups, including parents and caregivers, educational professionals, school psychologists, representatives of the juvenile police, and community-level specialists (NGOs and social workers). The combination of quantitative and qualitative components enables digital child safety to be examined as a multidimensional social phenomenon shaped at the intersection of individual experience, the family environment, institutional practices, and the broader social context. The findings of the study provide an analytical foundation for further conclusions and recommendations aimed at strengthening the digital safety of children and adolescents and improving practices for the prevention of and response to digital risks at the community level, in cooperation with Finn Church Aid.