Prince Harry and Meghan Speak on Child Online Safety at EU Parliament Amid Family Legal Issues
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex attended a European Parliament event in Brussels to promote a memorial highlighting online harms to children, marking their first public appearance since Meghan Markle’s father was arrested.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle arrived together at the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday to promote their Lost Screen Memorial, a project aimed at raising awareness of online harms affecting children. The appearance was their first public engagement since Thomas Markle was arrested in Florida on charges related to alleged child sexual abuse material found in a storage unit in California.
The couple declined to answer media questions about the personal impact of the allegations. Meghan remained in the audience while Harry delivered a 20-minute speech, emphasizing the need for stronger protections for children online.
"I’m not here as an expert or a politician. I’m here as a father. My wife, a mother," Harry said, adding that all children "deserve to feel safe, wherever they are."
He called for a clear, enforceable duty of care for technology companies, arguing that children’s data should not be treated as raw material for profit. He also warned that platforms can exploit children’s vulnerabilities without parental awareness.
After the parliamentary session, Harry participated in a panel titled "Beyond Promises: Building A Digital Future That Works For Children," where he described the addictive nature of social media as "brainwashing on an extraordinary scale."
The memorial, part of the Archewell Foundation’s No Child Lost to Social Media campaign, features 50 illuminated light boxes resembling smartphones, each displaying a lock-screen mock-up with a child’s photo, name and voice message to honor those lost to digital dangers such as cyberbullying and addictive algorithms. Similar installations were unveiled in New York last April and in Geneva, Switzerland in May.