Hope Pyx Global

A successful first Global Dialogue should produce practical, rights-based outcomes. First, it should establish a shared global framework for safe, secure, and trustworthy AI that addresses AI-enabled abuse, including online grooming, deepfakes, AI-generated child sexual abuse material, trafficking recruitment, and exploitation through encrypted or cross-border digital platforms. Second, it should prioritize AI capacity-building so that developing countries, civil society, law enforcement, survivor leaders, and frontline service providers can meaningfully participate in AI governance and response systems. Third, it should advance the protection and promotion of human rights by embedding survivor-centered, child-sensitive, gender-responsive, and trauma-informed safeguards into AI policy. Finally, it should create concrete accountability mechanisms, including transparency standards, human oversight, risk assessments, data protection, platform responsibility, and remedies for victims. The Dialogue should succeed by moving from discussion to implementation, coordination, and measurable protection outcomes.

• Safe, secure and trustworthy AI
• Protection and promotion of human rights
• AI capacity-building
• Transparency, accountability, and human oversight

I selected "safe, secure and trustworthy AI; AI capacity-building; protection and promotion of human rights; and transparency, accountability, and human oversight", because these themes are directly connected to preventing AI from becoming a tool of exploitation. My work on technology-facilitated trafficking and child exploitation shows that offenders already use digital tools, AI-generated content, and online platforms to identify vulnerability, groom victims, create abuse material, and evade detection. Governance must therefore focus on safety by design, accountability by design, and rights by design. Capacity-building is equally essential because many countries and frontline systems lack the technical, legal, and investigative infrastructure needed to respond to emerging AI-enabled harms. Human rights and survivor voices must remain at the front and center so that innovation does not come at the expense of women and children, men and boys, or other marginalized communities. Transparency and human oversight are necessary to ensure AI systems can be audited, challenged, and corrected when they enable harm, discrimination, or impunity. Reference: Eileen Dong, "Reclaiming Digital Spaces for Child Safety: Technology-Facilitated and Online Child Abuse and Exploitation," Police Chief 93, no. 2 (2026): 32-37.

The listed themes should more explicitly address AI-enabled trafficking, technology-facilitated gender-based violence, child sexual exploitation, and exploitation within emerging technology. These harms cut across safety, human rights, capacity-building, accountability, and open-source governance. AI can be weaponized through deepfakes, synthetic CSAM, automated grooming, vulnerability scanning, dark web distribution, cryptocurrency-facilitated payments, and cross-border trafficking recruitment. As a lived experience expert working with UNDP, UNODC, UN Women, and OHCHR, I noticed another missing issue, ethical survivor engagement. Lived experience experts should be included not only as participants and speakers, but as compensated decision-makers in governance design, risk assessment, implementation, and evaluation from the very beginning. The Dialogue should also promote standardized, disaggregated data collection, so governments can measure whether laws and safeguards actually protect victims. Without these cross-cutting priorities, AI governance may remain too general to address the real-world ways technology is already being used to exploit vulnerable people.

Governance gaps in safe, secure and trustworthy AI, human rights protections, capacity-building, and accountability are having direct consequences in the United States while also shaping global responses across the anti-trafficking, gender-based violence (GBV), and gender equality sectors. In the U.S., AI advancements have outpaced legal and policy frameworks, enabling the rise of AI-generated CSAM, deepfakes, online grooming, and technology-facilitated trafficking. These harms disproportionately impact women, girls, and vulnerable populations, yet existing laws and enforcement mechanisms often lag behind emerging forms of synthetic and cross-border abuse. Globally, these governance gaps are displayed by fragmented regulatory approaches and weak cross-border collaboration. Trafficking networks operate transnationally, leveraging AI, encrypted platforms, and digital financial systems, while governance systems remain largely national and reactive. Current frameworks frequently measure the existence of laws rather than their real-world effectiveness, leaving critical gaps in victim identification, prosecution, and survivor protection. In the anti-trafficking and GBV field, a key challenge is the lack of technical capacity and survivor-centered infrastructure. Many frontline systems—including law enforcement, social services, and policymakers—lack the tools and training to address AI-enabled exploitation. At the same time, survivors face barriers to justice. However, there are significant opportunities. AI can be leveraged to detect trafficking patterns and disrupt online exploitation. Strengthening global cooperation, embedding gender-responsive and survivor-centered safeguards, and investing in capacity-building can position AI as a tool to advance gender equality, protect human rights, and strengthen justice systems both in the United States and worldwide.

The Global Dialogue on AI Governance can serve as a critical coordination platform to bridge fragmented national approaches and enable a coherent, rights-based global response—particularly in addressing transnational organized crimes such as human trafficking, technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), and online child exploitation. AI-enabled abuse does not respect borders; traffickers exploit jurisdictional gaps, encrypted platforms, and digital financial systems, while governance frameworks remain largely siloed at the national level. The Dialogue can advance cooperation by establishing shared standards and multidisciplinary frameworks for safe and trustworthy AI, including AI-enabled exploitation, minimum safeguards, and accountability mechanisms. It can also facilitate cross-border information sharing and joint enforcement coordination, helping governments, law enforcement, and technology companies respond more effectively to transnational digital crimes. Importantly, the Dialogue can promote capacity-building and equitable participation, ensuring that developing countries, civil society, and survivor-led organizations are not excluded from shaping AI governance. By embedding human rights, gender equality, and survivor-centered approaches into global AI discussions, the Dialogue can ensure that governance frameworks reflect the lived experience of those most affected. Finally, the Dialogue can move beyond principles to actionable implementation, including measurable benchmarks, data-sharing standards, and mechanisms for monitoring compliance. In doing so, it can transform AI governance from fragmented systems into a coordinated global effort that protects human rights, strengthens justice systems, and prevents AI from being weaponized against vulnerable populations.

The AI Dialogue should build upon and connect with existing multilateral, legal, and policy frameworks, including the UN Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons, the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) and its Protocols, the Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process, and CEDAW General Recommendation No. 38 on trafficking in women and girls. It should also align with initiatives from UNODC, UN Women, UNICEF, and INTERPOL, as well as public-private partnerships with technology companies and civil society organizations working on online safety and digital rights. These frameworks already provide foundations for human rights, anti-trafficking, and gender equality—but they often lack integration with rapidly evolving AI technologies. The AI Dialogue can add value by bridging these existing mechanisms with AI-specific governance, ensuring that emerging technologies are incorporated into established legal and policy systems rather than addressed in isolation. Additionally, the Dialogue can help address long-standing gaps identified in global anti-trafficking efforts, including data fragmentation, weak cross-border coordination, and limited enforcement capacity. By promoting standardized, disaggregated data systems and shared metrics, it can strengthen evidence-based policymaking and accountability. The added value of the AI Dialogue lies in its ability to connect silos—linking human rights, technology governance, law enforcement, and survivor advocacy into a unified approach. It can also elevate survivor leadership and civil society participation as essential components of governance, ensuring policies are equitable, inclusive, and grounded in lived experience.

Different stakeholders should contribute through clearly defined, complementary roles. Governments should lead on regulatory alignment, enforcement cooperation, and integration of AI safeguards into national and international legal frameworks. Technology companies must contribute technical expertise, risk assessments, transparency reporting, and implement safety-by-design standards. Law enforcement and judicial actors should share operational challenges and best practices for investigating AI-enabled crimes, particularly trafficking and technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV). Civil society organizations and survivor-led groups must be meaningfully included as co-creators—not just participants—bringing lived experience, victim protection insights, and accountability perspectives. Academia and technical experts can support evidence-based policymaking, risk modeling, and evaluation frameworks. International organizations can facilitate coordination, standard-setting, and monitoring. The Dialogue should adopt a multi-tiered structure: (1) high-level plenary sessions for political commitment; (2) thematic working groups (e.g., human rights, safety, capacity-building); (3) regional consultations to reflect contextual realities; and (4) implementation tracks with measurable outputs. It should include pre-consultations, transparent reporting, and follow-up mechanisms to ensure continuity. Participation must be supported through funding, interpretation, and accessibility measures to ensure equitable engagement.

Underrepresented voices include survivors of trafficking and technology-facilitated abuse, women and girls, children and youth, migrants and displaced populations, and grassroots service providers. These groups are often the most impacted by AI-enabled harms yet remain excluded from decision-making spaces. Additionally, frontline practitioners (e.g., victim service providers, local law enforcement), low- and middle-income countries, and non-English-speaking communities are frequently underrepresented due to resource, language, and access barriers. There is also limited inclusion of experts working at the intersection of AI, gender equality, and transnational organized crime. Inclusion should go beyond symbolic participation. The Dialogue should establish funded participation mechanisms, including travel support, stipends, and visa facilitation. It should integrate survivor leadership models, ensuring lived experience experts are compensated and involved in agenda-setting, decision-making, and evaluation. Language accessibility, regional consultations, and hybrid participation formats are essential. The Dialogue should also create safe engagement spaces for vulnerable participants, including trauma-informed and confidential consultation channels. Finally, partnerships with local organizations can help identify and elevate voices that are otherwise excluded from global forums.

To foster meaningful engagement, the AI Dialogue should move beyond traditional panels and adopt interactive, solution-oriented formats. These could include: Survivor-informed dialogues: Structured sessions where lived experience experts guide discussions on impact, accountability, and protection needs. Tech-policy hackathons: Bringing together developers, policymakers, and advocates to prototype tools for detection, prevention, and transparency. Digital platforms can enable continuous engagement before, during and after the Dialogue, including open consultations for non-ECOSOC accredited organizations, collaborative drafting tools, and knowledge-sharing hubs. To ensure impact, each session should produce tangible outputs—such as policy recommendations, toolkits, or implementation roadmaps—rather than general discussions. Combining both in-person and virtual participation will broaden access and inclusivity. These formats can transform the Dialogue into a dynamic, action-driven process that generates practical solutions for AI governance.

Effective AI governance can be strengthened through a combination of regulatory, technical, and multistakeholder approaches. Risk-based frameworks that classify AI by potential harm provide a strong foundation, especially when expanded to include AI-enabled exploitation such as deepfakes, synthetic abuse material, and online trafficking. Safety-by-design practices by technology companies-such as content moderation tools, prompt monitoring, and age-appropriate protections-help prevent harm at the source. AI-powered detection systems can identify grooming patterns, flag abusive content, and monitor illicit activities, including trafficking networks and emerging risks in supply chains. Data standardization and transparency are also critical. Consistent, disaggregated data improves accountability and enables more effective policy and enforcement responses. Finally, survivor-centered and multistakeholder approaches-including the meaningful inclusion of lived experience experts-ensure AI governance is grounded in human rights and real-world impact.