On the 13th and 14th of October, ECPAT Belgium attended the Don’t Look Away project’s final conference organized by ECPAT France. Around 100 experts from child rights NGO’s, the tourism sector and law enforcement agencies gathered in Paris to discuss how to better protect children from sexual exploitation in travel and tourism.
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3,000 to 3,500 unaccompanied foreign minors (UFM) entered the Belgian territory in 2015. In 2014, they were 1,700. An estimate given during the press conference of the Platform Minors in exile on the 21th of October. “The UFM tend to be younger and younger” explained Katja Fournier, coordinator of the Platform Minors in exile. These children, coming mainly from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Somalia, are often exploited and tortured along their road to Europe. However, on the 9th of October, only 16 places remained in Fedasil reception centers. The Platform estimates that 120 to 150 new places by month are needed by the end of 2015 to take care of these children. The need for political actions is urgent, regarding the risk of exposing these children to new exploitations: forced labour, mendacity, prostitution, etc.
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Eurostat published the 2015 edition of the report on statistics on human trafficking in the European Union, covering the period 2010-2012. Where do the identified victims of trafficking come from? And the traffickers? What form of exploitation are the most common? 19% of identified victims are children. 55% of identified victims are under 24 and 69% are sexually exploited. Belgium is no exception, being in the top five of the EU countries where the traffickers come from.
These figures show the urgent need of better protection for children against trafficking. At the occasion of the EU Anti-trafficking day (18th of October), the Council of Europe recalled that governments must act to prevent and combat child trafficking.
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150,000 is the number of visits by month for this file sharing website. It was revealed and taken offline last August thanks to Norwegian journalists 10 years after its creation. During their investigation, the journalists identified 95,000 downloads including 500 from Belgian computers. Belgian prosecutors are trying to track down the Webmaster and users of this site. A bad news that shows us how much the fight against commercial sexual exploitation online is important.
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Today, Heads of State gathered for the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in New York comitted to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals(SGDs).
These new goals include the promise to take immediate and effective measures to eradicate the worst forms of child labour by 2025, which includes commercial sexual exploitation of children.
These SGDs, which replace the Millenium Developpment Goals of 2000, are a great opportunity to reinforce our advocacy work towards Belgian and European authorities.
Link to the the press release.
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Following the Code of Conduct’s signature by ACCOR Belgium in 2014, the staff must be trained to prevent sexual exploitation of children.
The 8th , 22d and 29th of September, ECPAT Belgium conducted training sessions for ACCOR’s managers in order to help their staff to detect and act against child prostitution within their hotels.
Participants raised relevant questions about procedures and the identification of victims. Given the success of this initiative, other trainings will be organized next year.
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The 18th of November 2015 will mark the first European Day on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse. Save the date and join us in the fight against commercial sexual exploitation of children!
The purpose of the European Day, initiated by the Council of Europe, is to raise public awareness and to open the discussion on the protection of children against sexual exploitation and abuse.
It will also offer the occasion to promote the Lanzarote Convention, a unique legally binding instrument for the criminalization of all forms of sexual abuse of children.
This Day is meant for children, parents, educators, decision-makers, NGO, etc. and for anybody that’s touched by the protection of children.
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What kind of protection is offered to children against commercial sexual exploitation in Belgium? What are the possible improvements of the system?
ECPAT Belgium’s assessment of the situation in Belgium, is now available in English.
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Web giants Google, Facebook and Twitter have joined forces with a British charity in a bid to remove millions of indecent child images from the net.
In a UK first, anti-abuse organisation Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has begun sharing lists of indecent images, identified by unique “hash” codes.
The IWF, which works to take down indecent images of children, allocates to each picture it finds a “hash” – a unique code, sometimes referred to as a digital finger-print.
By sharing “hash lists” of indecent pictures of children, Google, Facebook and Twitter will be able to stop those images from being uploaded to their sites.
Online security specialists welcomed the move as a positive step, but said it would not block content on the “darknet” – a network with restricted access – where abusers often posted images.
Source: BBC
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2014 has been a commemorative year for ECPAT Belgium: 10-year anniversary of the “Stop Child Prostitution” campaign, 20 years since ECPAT Belgium started and 25-year anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Find out more here about our activities in 2014. Best of: launch of the “I say STOP” website, signature of the Code of Conduct by ACCOR Belgium, final conference of the “Make-IT-Safe” project and publication of 15 analyses and one study on the topic.
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