GENEVA (26 September 2019) – The United Nations Committee which monitors the Convention on the Rights of the Child is
officially launching on Thursday new guidelines designed to help States better implement the Convention’s Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution
and Child Pornography.
The Guidelines drawn up by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child place a particular focus on the specific new
threats confronting children all across the world as a result of digital technologies such as the internet and social
media.
Rapidly evolving information and communication technologies have provided sexual offenders with a variety of new
opportunities and means to abuse children. They are being used to groom children for sexual purposes; to view and
participate in online child sexual abuse via live video streaming; to distribute child sexual abuse material, including
self-generated content resulting from “sexting;” and to commit sexual extortion.
Offenders are connecting and sharing encrypted information with one another, and using the ‘darknet’ to commit or facilitate offences covered by the Optional Protocol. This presents new and complex challenges for law
enforcement. In a world where internet access is expanding at unprecedented levels, the risk of children being sexually
exploited, or of being bought and sold as a commodity, both within and across national borders, has been growing at an
alarming rate.
The Guidelines aim to foster a deeper understanding of the provisions of the Optional Protocol, and offer practical
solutions based on the good practices and challenges that States have encountered in its implementation. They are
designed to assist the 176 States that have ratified the Optional Protocol so far – as well as those which accede to it
in the future – to implement its provisions effectively.
The Guidelines also address the role played by the private sector and States’ obligation to ensure companies and other
private sector entities take action to prevent the sexual exploitation of children.
“The Guidelines cover prevention, prohibition of the sale of children and their sexual exploitation for prostitution and
in pornography, measures to prevent impunity of perpetrators and measures to support and rehabilitate child victims,”
said the Committee’s Chair, Luis Pedernera. “We believe they can be of considerable help to States in their efforts to
combat these atrocious crimes which continue to blight the lives of so many children across the world. This is no longer
a case of an occasional hidden offender living at the bottom of the street. It is now a case of a multitude of offenders
on the other side of the world who can reach directly inside our homes in order to corrupt and destroy our children’s
lives. This is a battle we simply cannot afford to lose.”