Side event · UNTOC COP13 · Vienna
Community Resilience against the Recruitment of Children
Community and education responses to online recruitment by organized criminal groups, in support of article 31 of the Convention.
- Thursday 22 October 2026 · 9:00 to 9:50
- Room MOE79 · Vienna International Centre, Vienna
- Multi-stakeholder dialogue · 50 minutes · hybrid · English
Download the concept note(PDF · 703 kB)
Please let us know that you are coming. The session is open to everyone registered for the Conference, in the room and online.
HWPL is invited to participate as an observer at COP13; the side event is listed in the Secretariat's programme of side events.
Thursday 22 October 2026, 9:00 to 9:50, Room MOE79, Vienna International Centre, during the thirteenth session (19 to 23 October 2026). Agenda item 3
As at 15 October 2026
Co-organized by
- Consulate of Mali
- Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
- African Union
- NUNSA
- UPF
- IPYG
- UNODC MENA Youth Network
- IAYSP
- PYO
Event at a glance
The essentials at a glance.
- Theme
- Community Resilience against the Recruitment of Children
- Objective
- Exchange operational experience between Member States, UNODC and civil society on preventing the recruitment of children, and identify cooperation that complements existing UNODC prevention work.
- Focus
- Community and education-based implementation of article 31 of the Convention, under agenda item 3: new forms and dimensions of transnational organized crime.
- Format
- Multi-stakeholder dialogue (Member States, UNODC, civil society), 50 minutes, hybrid, in English.
- Date and time
- Thursday 22 October 2026, 9:00 to 9:50 CEST, during the thirteenth session. Listed in the Secretariat's programme of side events.
- Venue
- Vienna International Centre (VIC), UNODC, Vienna. Room MOE79.
- Host
- HWPL (Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light)
- Co-organizers
- Consulate of Mali · Islamic Republic of Afghanistan · African Union · National Union of Nigerian Students in Austria (NUNSA) · Universal Peace Federation (UPF) · International Peace Youth Group (IPYG) · UNODC MENA Youth Network · International Association of Youth and Students for Peace (IAYSP) · Pakistan Youth Organization (PYO). The list of co-organizers is closed.
Why this side event
Organized criminal groups now recruit children through the same online platforms those children use for school and for friendship.
The Convention already provides the framework for a response that reaches beyond enforcement. What remains under-examined is the operational layer: who, in practice, reaches a child before a recruiter does. This side event puts that question to Member States, UNODC and practitioners together.
Drivers addressed in this session
- 01
Weak family, school and community bonds
Where the adults around a child are absent, overstretched or unequipped, recruitment meets no resistance at the point it begins.
- 02
Social exclusion and unequal opportunity
Recruitment concentrates where prospects are thin. It is offered, and received, as a route to income and standing.
- 03
The absence of belonging and identity
Criminal groups supply status, protection and a place to belong. Prevention that offers only a warning is competing against an offer.
- 04
Normalization of harmful behaviour online
Encrypted applications, gamified tasks and coded language make recruitment routine, private and hard for an adult to read.
- 05
Children targeted for reduced liability
Minors are recruited deliberately because their criminal liability is lower. The targeting is a strategy, not a by-product.
The evidence
The session rests on published findings rather than on the experience of any single organization. Every figure carries its source and year.
over 70 %
of criminal markets in the European Union involve minors, typically aged 13 to 17, recruited through encrypted applications, gamified tasks and coded language.
Source: Europol, Intelligence Notification Ref. 2024-033 (2024)as young as 12
Children of twelve are recorded as being recruited, correlated with socio-economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods; 821 high-risk networks were identified.
Source: European Parliamentary Research Service, PE 772.903 (2025)Forced criminality is identified as a growing form of exploitation, alongside the established forms of trafficking in persons.
Source: UNODC, Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2024
In resolution 2024/11, adopted by consensus, the Economic and Social Council recorded its deep concern at these risks and called upon Member States to counter them.
Why this belongs at the Conference of the Parties
The mandate is not borrowed. Article 31 of the Convention and article 9 of the Trafficking in Persons Protocol ask States Parties to do precisely this kind of work, and to do it together.
UNTOC, art. 31 (1)
States Parties shall endeavour to develop and evaluate national projects and to establish and promote best practices and policies aimed at the prevention of transnational organized crime.
UNTOC, art. 31 (7)
States Parties collaborate with each other and with international and regional organizations in promoting those measures, including through projects that alleviate the circumstances rendering marginalized groups vulnerable.
Trafficking in Persons Protocol, art. 9 (2)-(5)
States Parties shall take measures to alleviate the factors that make persons vulnerable to trafficking, including poverty, underdevelopment and lack of equal opportunity, and shall cooperate through research, information and mass media campaigns.
The session is proposed under agenda item 3: new forms and dimensions of transnational organized crime.
“States Parties shall, as appropriate, collaborate with each other and relevant international and regional organizations in promoting and developing the measures referred to in this article. This includes participation in international projects aimed at the prevention of transnational organized crime, for example by alleviating the circumstances that render socially marginalized groups vulnerable to the action of transnational organized crime.”The approach
No external programme can reach every child at risk. But every child at risk is already in contact with adults who can be equipped to recognize and interrupt recruitment.
Rather than adding programmes, the approach expands the capability of the people already in a child's life: teachers, coaches, youth workers, faith and community leaders. Three levels are presented, in ascending order of durability.
- 01
Equipping the adults who are already there
Structured training for educators and community leaders in recognizing early indicators, opening a conversation with a child at risk, and knowing where to refer. This is the layer that scales, because it does not depend on an external organization staying.
- 02
Giving young people a role rather than a warning
Peer-led civic, sporting and cultural activity that supplies the belonging, identity and purpose recruitment also offers, and keeps young people visible to supportive adults rather than to recruiters.
- 03
Securing institutional ownership
Agreements with education ministries, municipal authorities and law-enforcement counterparts, so that prevention survives a change of staff, of funding or of government.
Indicative programme
Segments in order, from 9:00 to 9:50.
| Segment | Content |
|---|---|
| Opening | Welcome and framing, by HWPL as moderator. |
| Opening remarks | Strengthening international efforts to protect children from criminal exploitation and recruitment (United Arab Emirates, Ministry of Interior). |
| Evidence | How recruitment works now: scale, online mechanics, risk and protective factors. |
| Member States | Three delegations, on national experience and on the commitments recorded in resolution 2024/11. |
| Civil society | UNODC's work with civil society on preventing and countering organized crime (UNODC Civil Society Unit). |
| Prevention approach | What communities and schools do: a three-level approach to prevention (HWPL). |
| Community intervention | Intercultural education and intergenerational dialogue in immigrant communities (Universal Peace Federation). |
| Youth voice | Youth perspectives and initiatives (AIESEC in Germany), and a youth practitioner's perspective on peer-level prevention. |
| Discussion | Exchange with the floor. |
| Close | One ask, one offer. |
Expected outcomes
What the session is meant to leave behind, and what will be written down afterwards.
- Outcome 1
Evidence exchanged
Current evidence on the online recruitment of children, and on what community and education-based prevention achieves alongside law enforcement, is exchanged between Member States, UNODC and practitioners, in support of article 31 of the Convention and article 9 of the Trafficking in Persons Protocol.
- Outcome 2
Multipliers named
The multiplier role of educators, community leaders and youth workers is set out, and the points identified where civil society field experience complements UNODC's existing prevention work: Line Up Live Up, Education for Justice, and the UNODC-UNESCO work on a culture of lawfulness.
- Outcome 3
Continuation recorded
Expressions of interest in continued exchange are recorded, and a written summary is submitted to the Secretariat for the online compilation of side event summaries.
Who is behind this
Who is behind the session, who speaks in it, and who is still being invited.
HWPL
HWPL is a non-governmental organization registered with the UN Department of Global Communications, holding ECOSOC special consultative status since 2017. It currently runs Peace Education and Conflict Prevention Programmes in 1,012 educational institutions in 112 countries. At the heart of that work is early intervention: equipping young people with identity, belonging and civic purpose before vulnerabilities take hold.
- Civil society
HWPL
Opens and moderates the session, and presents the three-level prevention approach that communities and schools apply in practice.
- Member State
United Arab Emirates, Ministry of Interior
Gives the opening remarks, on strengthening international efforts to protect children from criminal exploitation and recruitment.
- Member State
Consulate of Mali
Speaks on the drivers that expose young people to recruitment by armed and criminal groups, and on conflicts of interest as a structural driver of corruption and crime.
- Civil society
Universal Peace Federation (UPF)
Speaks on intercultural education and intergenerational dialogue in immigrant communities, and on equipping parents to reach a young person before a recruiter does.
- Civil society
UNODC MENA Youth Network
Brings a youth network's perspective on peer-level prevention.
- United Nations
UNODC Civil Society Unit
Brings the perspective of UNODC's work with civil society on preventing and countering organized crime.
- Civil society
AIESEC in Germany
Speaks on youth perspectives and on the initiatives young people lead themselves.
- Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
- African Union
- National Union of Nigerian Students in Austria (NUNSA)
- International Peace Youth Group (IPYG)
- International Association of Youth and Students for Peace (IAYSP)
- Pakistan Youth Organization (PYO)
The list of co-organizers is closed. As at 1 September 2026.
Would you like to take part?
Whether you would like to join, to speak, or to bring your country's or your organization's perspective into the session: write to us. Expressions of interest are equally welcome from Member States, United Nations entities and civil society partners.
Write to usun@hwpl.at
Contact
For delegations, United Nations entities and media.
Attend the session
Thursday 22 October 2026, 9:00 to 9:50, Room MOE79 at the Vienna International Centre, and online. The session is open to everyone registered for the Conference.
Letting us know takes a minute and helps us plan the room; it does not register you for the Conference. Delegations unable to attend in person are welcome to contribute remotely, as one co-host did at the Commission in June.
- UNTOC, art. 31
- Trafficking in Persons Protocol, art. 9
- ECOSOC res. 2024/11 (2024)
- Europol, Intelligence Notification Ref. 2024-033 (2024)
- EPRS, PE 772.903 (2025)
- UNODC, Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2024
- UNODC/WHO, International Standards on Drug Use Prevention (2018)
This page follows the concept note in its version of 1 October 2026. Working document, subject to change. Day, time and room as listed in the Secretariat's programme of side events of 23 September 2026.
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