New initiatives by Asian countries seek to cut demand for child sexual exploitation – UNICEF

Three years after Asian countries committed themselves to fighting the commercial sexual exploitation of children, new initiatives in the region are leading the way in countering the scourge, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today.

Representatives from more than 20 East Asian and Pacific countries meeting over the last three days in Bangkok agreed to bolster efforts to reduce demand for the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

They also reported on new measures and improvements to existing procedures designed to protect youngsters, help victims and punish exploiters.

The meeting was a follow up to the 2001 East Asia and Pacific Regional Consultation against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, which was held to provide input to the World Congress on that topic held later that year in Yokohama, Japan. It was organized by UNICEF, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), and End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT) International, a network of organizations and individuals working to eliminate the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

Among the regional efforts is the world’s first multi-country Memorandum of Understanding against trafficking, which covers the prevention of trafficking; the repatriation, rehabilitation and sensitive treatment of victims; and the extradition and prosecution of exploiters. Participants in the agreement, signed last month in Myanmar, include Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam.

Despite such progress, UNICEF said, the lack of reliable data remains a major obstacle to implementing well-targeted and effective measures to stop the sex trade in children. New research designed to address this shortcoming and better support the need for monitoring was also presented and discussed at the conference.

The meeting also considered strategies to stop the exponential rise in child pornography on the Internet, which, through the development of new technologies such as digital cameras and mobile phones, has increased the spread of such images.