06/11/2025
Cybersecurity Education Initiative - CYSED is honored to share our official statement delivered by our Co-Founder, OLUWATOBI AYODELE, on behalf of our organization at the historic United Nations Convention Against Cybercrime Signing Ceremony & High-level Conference.
To be invited to speak at the main plenary was a profound opportunity to bring the voice of African youth and frontline civil society to the highest levels of global policy.
đź”— You can read the full official statement on the UN Convention website here: https://hanoiconvention.org/statement/cybersecurity-education-initiative-cyseds-statement/
Our message was clear, targeted, and grounded in our on-the-ground experience.
We highlighted three core principles:
PREVENTION over Prosecution: The Hanoi Convention's greatest power lies not just in arrests, but in its mandate for prevention under Chapter VI (Article 53).
PARTNERSHIP over Tokenism: We called on Member States to move beyond seeing youth as a "vulnerable group" and to empower them as "essential partners" in co-creating and implementing policy, as envisioned in Article 53, Paragraph 2.
RESILIENCE over Reaction: We stressed that the most effective way to fight organized cybercrime is to stop the recruitment of youth by investing in mandatory digital literacy and cyber-ethics education.
This is a historic moment for youth-led advocacy. It is a powerful validation that the grassroots work we do every day, the training, the advocacy, the resilience-building are essential to the global fight against cybercrime.
A profound thank you to the UNODC - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Government of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam for making this inclusive event a reality.
CYSED is more committed than ever to our mission: to be a bridge between global policy and local action. The real work of implementing this Convention starts now.
Council of Europe Economic and Financial Crimes Commission World Economic Forum Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, Nigeria
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