The European Commission will launch Wednesday in Brussels a global alliance against child sexual abuse carried out through the Internet. 48 countries will join the alliance, participating countries will decide later national measures to achieve the objectives of the alliance.
The alliance will be launched by the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström, along with Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General.
The initiative aims at bringing together global decision makers to better identify and assist victims, and also at prosecuting the perpetrators of these crimes, reads a statement of the European Commission.
At the conference to launch the alliance will participate ministers and senior officials from the 27 EU Member States and other 21 other countries outside the European Union, namely Albania, Australia, Cambodia, Croatia, Switzerland, Philippines, Georgia, Ghana, Japan, Moldova, Montenegro, Nigeria, Norway, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Serbia, USA, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Vietnam.
According to the source, countries participating in the alliance are committed to meet several policy objectives so that, after intensifying international cooperation, the fight against child sexual abuse via the Internet to become more efficient.
“Behind each image showing an abuse of a child, there is an abused child, an exploited and helpless victim. Once they reach the Internet, these images can circulate indefinitely. Our responsibility is to protect the children, wherever they live and to bring offenders to justice, regardless of the place where they are operating. The only way to achieve this is to join forces to take stronger action and better coordinated globally,”
said Cecilia Malmström.
It is estimated that over a million images of children subjected to sexual abuse and exploitation are currently on the Internet. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), each year there are 50,000 new child abuse images added.
“This international initiative will strengthen our mutual resources to bring more perpetrators to justice, identify more victims of child sexual abuse, and ensure that they receive our help and support,”
said the U.S. Attorney General.
Participating countries will express their political commitment to achieve several objectives. They will consider intensifying efforts to identify victims and to ensure that they receive assistance, support and protection needed, and to find and prosecute criminals.
They will also consider measures to inform children about the risks of the Internet, including the pictures taken by themselves, and methods of “grooming” used by pedophiles, and measures to reduce the availability of online material depicting child abuse, avoiding them to be victims of abuse again.
Thereafter, each country member of the alliance will decide the measures to be adopted at national level to meet the objectives and will provide periodic reports.
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