Leo van Doesburg

  Today is the European Day on the Protectionof Children   against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, an initiative by the Council of Europe. This year’s European Day focuses on preventing risky behaviour by children through child self-generated sexual images and/or videos. The COVID crisis has unfortunately exacerbated the problem of child sexual abuse, as the "EU Strategy for a Most Effective Fight Against Child Sex Abuse" highlighted.   Children are spending more time than before online, possibly unsupervised. While this has allowed them to continue their studies and not fall behind in the education process, there are signs that they are at an increased risk of encountering predators.   Actions to address these problems are therefore needed. To that end, on the 9th of December, ECPM Member of the European Parliament Helmut Geuking , as co-chair of the European Parliament Intergroup on Demographic Challenges, Family-Work Balance and Youth Transitions, will ...

A few days ago, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CoE) (which is the statutory decision making body of the CoE) endorsed a report of its Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) on the oversexualisation of children. It also encouraged its Member States to take concrete steps in protecting children. The rapporteur for this report was ECPM Member Valeriu Ghiletchi (MP, Moldova). His report highlighted the negative consequences of the oversexualisation and objectification of children by the media, marketing campaigns as well as television programmes. Additionally, the recommendations submitted to the Committee of Ministers called for the inclusion of the issue of the oversexualisation of children in their "Council of Europe Strategy for the Rights of the Child" (2016-2021). Moreover, it invites the relevant Council of Europe Committees to take more action .  We strongly welcome the endorsement of this report from the Council of Ministers. Now, their recommendations ...

Trafficking in human beings constitutes a grave violation of individual rights, freedom and dignity as well as being a serious form of crime. The implications of this phenomenon are beyond what individual countries can address on their own. [1] It is this compelling reality that first led to the development of EU policy on combating trafficking in human beings. Read here the background information (By Anca de Jong Bulica for the ECPM)