13TH HUMAN RIGHTS FORUM

Youth of the World : Freedom, Identity, Future

More than ever before, youth appears as one of the most lucid indicators of our time. It is both exposed to contemporary crises (climatic, technological, societal, political) and bearer of new dynamics of transformation. Permanently connected but rarely heard, the youths of the world navigate between global openness and local rootedness, between individual freedom and a sense of collective powerlessness, between desire for the future and anxiety.

For the first time in decades, a generation is growing up with the conviction that the future will be more uncertain than the past. Climate crisis, protracted wars, increasingly precarious life paths, the growing influence of technology on both personal and collective lives: the horizon has darkened. In this context, youth becomes less a promise than the primary space of tension between democratic aspirations and systems in crisis. It is this shift that the 2026 Forum proposes to explore.

Faced with crises, doubts, and tensions, youths are raising their voices. They speak out in the streets, on artistic stages, in universities, on social media, through civic mobilisations, cultural creations, environmental commitments or social innovations. They do not form a homogeneous bloc: there are plural youths, marked by inequality, geography, gender, and history. But they all share the same urgency: to redefine the rules of the world in which they will live and grow.

At the heart of their concerns, one notion, one struggle stands out strongly: freedom. Freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom to create, freedom to be oneself in societies sometimes constrained by norms, algorithms, surveillance, or political legacies.

The question of identity also holds an important place in the struggles and debates of the youths of the world: how to build oneself in a globalised world? How to embrace multiple, hybrid, shifting identities without giving up one’s roots? How to make diversity a strength rather than a fault line?

Finally, the question of the future inevitably haunts all minds. It transcends geographies and ethnicities. A vital, urgent question: what future is still possible in a world marked by climate crisis, the generalisation of conflicts, the dictates of algorithms and artificial intelligence, growing inequalities and the loss of trust in institutions?

For its thirteenth edition, the Human Rights Forum of Essaouira proposes to place the youths of the world at the centre of the debate, not as a subject to be analysed from the outside, but as voices to be listened to, heard and challenged. The Forum aims to be a space of intergenerational, intercultural and international dialogue, where young artists, thinkers, activists, social entrepreneurs and engaged citizens can share their visions, their anger, their hopes and their proposals.

In Essaouira, a crossroads city open to Africa, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, the idea is to make youth not an abstract symbol, but a force of reflection, creation and collective projection.

INAUGURAL LECTURE:

Souleymane Bachir Diagne

Philosopher and emeritus Professor – Columbia University