Submitted by crinadmin on
Summary: This report reflects the experiences
and reflections of child protection
advocates and specialists working to
combat sexual abuse of children,
child pornography and paedophilia
on the Internet. It outlines the plan
of action adopted at UNESCO's
expert meeting on this
subject held in January 1999.
Preface
The Internet, as well as all future forms of electronic, global
dissemination of information and knowledge are indisputably
powerful media, instantaneous and' interactive. They offer the
means for education, culture and self-improvement. They can
uplift individuals, they can empower whole societies, they can
become hubs of business and profitable human enterprise.
Like any other communication technology, the Internet is only a
means, a carrier. Despite its creative advantages, the Internet
can also wreak havoc on the lives of our young children. It can
expose them to illegal images of child pornography, it can provide
the entire transactional basis for lucrative traffic in pornography.
Repeated and relentless exposure to paedophile writings, essays
and images could mislead children and the general public into
thinking that there is nothing wrong with free sex for children of
any age, that there is nothing illegal or harmful with the sexual
abuse of children or in displaying such acts through pornography
or paedophile websites on the Internet. Many paedophile sites
aim precisely at proving that their deviant behaviour is 'normal'
or 'acceptable' by the very fact that they and their writings are
openly and prominently displayed on the Internet.
The convening of the UNESCO expert's meeting on the Sexual
Abuse of Children,Child Pornography and Paedophilia on the
Internet was occasioned by reports on Operation Cathedral. This
police operation led by Interpol and simultaneously launched in
six countries on the night of 2 September 1998 demonstrated
how widely spread paedophile networks were and gave an
estimation of their traffic in illegal images, one source holding 48
gigabytes, another over half a million illegal images. A non-
governmental organization in the USA claims there are at least
21,000 paedophile sites accessible under various names, some of
them innocent and even attractive, like 'free spirits' or 'boy
lovers.' But even one paedophile site is enough to corrupt
children. Despite the driving factor of consumerism, the Internet
should not become a means of 'consuming' children.
In calling the Expert's Meeting on 18-19 January 1999 at its
Headquarters in Paris, UNESCO sought to provide the venue for
an overall assessment of what has been achieved by UN
specialized agencies, governmental and non-governmental
organizations~ foundations, police and judiciary forces,
psychologists and the media. It was deemed necessary to
appreciate the role and contribution of all actors in the fight
against child pornography and paedophilia on the Internet: the
communication industry, schools, the family and parliaments.
Participants sought to enlist the resources that could be counted
on and to describe the work that still needed expertise and
financing. Stock was taken of using any audiovisual support. Law
enfor
information provided in existing reportsand websites maintained
by groups defending children's rights, and of the achievements
already made by NGOs since the 1996 Stockholm World
Conference on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
and the 1997 Experts meeting on Child Pornography on the
Internet in Lyons.
It was gratifying to note how the International Labour
Organization and the World Tourism Organization, The European
Commission and the Council of Europe in cooperation with
several NGOs had all been struggling to protect children from sex-
trafficking and sale, from various forms of prostitution and sex
tourism, and from the production of pornographic material;
several have also been working towards strengthening existing
international instruments in this domain, in particular the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child. But, it was clearly
confirmed, making the Internet safe for children was not a
question of censorship.
The fact that crimes committed on the Internet are not restricted
by national borders makes many national and conventional laws
on child abuse and child pornography either weak or obsolete.
Most national legislation on child pornography is based mainly if
not exclusively on print as the medium, with an actual child as a
model. Most laws have not yet dealt with digitally generated
images, morphing, and the mere possession of illegal
pornographic materials cement often is also handicapped, as few
judiciary and police services throughout the world are technically
as well equipped as the pornographers and cybercriminals.
Nor has there been sufficient focus on and resources for
improving the social context in which these crimes occur:
exclusion, social injustice, poverty and a lack of respect and
inadequate protection for the child's rights. It is perhaps
necessary to broaden ones vision and seek solutions based not
on a culture of imposition, force and the superfluous, but on a
culture of peace, respect for human rights, democracy and ethical
behaviour. To conquer the macroproblems of poverty and
exclusion, conditions under which the sexual exploitation of
children in any form thrives, major political decisions must be
taken at the highest governmental levels and the proportionate
level of financing must be allocated. Charity and humanitarian
measures alone will not solve these problems. New resources
must be imagined, new levels of energy must be released.
The Experts' meeting drew attention to the growth and
complexity of the problems of sexual abuse of children, child
pornography and paedophilia on the Internet and the need of a
global offensive on all fronts - civil society, legal experts and
industry. As a new watershed has been reached in this battle, it
is realized that we all now need transnational tools and a more
articulated flow-across and flow-down international co-operation;
we need to ensure cross-border agreements for extradition and
extra- territoriality; co-operation in enforcing laws has to be more
effective; key research and particularly quantification and
qualification of the problems has to be shared and made easily
accessible by the public; children, but also parents and teachers,
need to have access to helplines and hotlines. Self-regulation by
Internet service providers needs more muscle.
The plight of the paedophile himself was raised by the UN Special
Rapporteur and a few NGOs and individuals, for as long as
paedophilia itself is not resolved, the sexual abuse of children
and child pornography will not end. While this issue was not
discussed in depth, it is perhaps worth raising in a future
colloquium.
The main concern of UNESCO are the young children of today.
Children who are at the very crossroads of life where education
and culture, tolerance and peace should beckon them to create
their place in society, and not let them succumb to the traffic of
prostitution and other forms of sexual abuse. These are the
children who should be in the schools that UNESCO and its
Member States seek to assist and for which the Organization
seeks to provide the latest resources and techniques in
education, science and culture. The minds of children are the
seeding grounds for the peace of the next generation. Who
destroys children, destroys the future of society.
While seeking to protect children from the dangers of the
Internet, it is also important to distinguish and punish the real
criminals, and not destroy the tools, the new communication and
information technologies, thecreative environment which offers
the means of transferring culture and education, as well as,
unfortunately, child pornography and paedophiia UNESCO has an
ethical mandate to promote the free flow of ideas by word and
image, a wider and better-balanced dissemina tion of information
at international as well as national levels without any obstacle to
the freedom of expression. The only way to cure the ills of
freedom is to ensure more freedom, and the only way to cure the
ills of democracy is to have more democracy.
This report is the output of the more than 400 experts and
specialists who participated in this meeting. It reflects the
experiences and reflections of child protection advocates and
specialists, some of whom have been dedicated to this work for
over three decades. The overall achievement of this meeting is a
Declaration and an Action Plan put forth by the participants in
separate workshops and formulated into an ensemble by the
Rapporteur. While many of the actions are addressed to UNESCO,
the Action Plan proposes that all actors must take these vital
steps together.
During the two day meeting, many spoke of the chains of silence
surrounding the subject of sexual abuse of children, the silence of
children, the silence of the perpetrators, the silence of the courts
and of justice, the silence of psychologists and psychiatric
counsellors. The Report of this meeting and the dissemination of
its Declaration and Action Plan are seen as a first way of breaking
these chains of silence.