22/03/2011 Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Strasbourg, 22.03.2011 - In the past, producers and consumers of child abuse images constituted a very small and marginal group. However, the ability to interconnect people and share images and videos through the Internet has resulted in an explosion in the number of worldwide paedophiles, participants said at a hearing on "combating child pornography as part of the campaign to stop sexual violence against children" organised by the Social Affairs Committee in Paris today.
The ease of communication and anonymity afforded by the virtual world of computers, which makes possible the removal of almost all social barriers and taboos that, in many cases, discouraged potential criminals, has provided not only fertile ground for the emergence of new criminals, but also the ideal setting for committing offences. This world also provides structures and mechanisms which make prosecution very difficult, participants said.
Consequently, child pornography must be dealt with from an information and communication technologies point of view, they added. The rapporteur on this topic, Agustín Conde Bajén (Spain, EPP/CD) stressed that it was important to decide whether or not to include website blocking as a concrete and compulsory measure in the fight against online child abuse material.
Participants underlined the need to foster co-operation. Because these are global problems that are best solved with global, co-ordinated solutions, it is important to provide forums, such as this one, in which ideas, initiatives and proposals can be shared to further the protection of the rights of children, they said.
Member states should adopt comprehensive national strategies and measures in order to better protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation even when perpetrated through new technologies, they concluded. In this context, they also called on member states who have not yet done so, to sign and ratify the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse ("Lanzarote Convention") which provides measures to prevent sexual abuse and exploitation of children, to improve investigations at national and European levels, and to adequately protect and assist victims.