Speech Anita Gradin - Stockholm

Nine year old Marinela forced to sexual services for one dollar a time by

her 18 year old girl pimp outside the Bucharest railway station is but one

example of thousands of children exploited in the world today, said EU

Commissioner Anita Gradin when taking part in the opening of the UN world

Congress against sexual exploitation of children in Stockholm, August 27.

- It has taken far too long to realize the extent to which children are

exposed to sexual abuse in our society. It is to a large extent due to the

work of NGO:s that politicians no longer can turn a blind eye and that the

issues is now firmly on the political agenda. Child violation is on the

increase, and so are the profits from the multi-billion dollar sex trade.

- The risks when trafficking in human beings are far smaller than for

smuggling drugs. Trade with children and women for sexual purposes has, in

the eyes of the trafficker, turned into a matter of commodities for money

and calculated risks, said Mrs Gradin.

She pointed out that the trafficking in women and children is transnational

and that the organised crime behind the trade is also engaged in other

criminal activities like abduction, falsification of documents, false

marriages and adoptions, illegal immigration , violence and bonded labour.

Linked to these are other grave problems like drugs, extortion and even

homicide.A global action plan and international cooperation is needed.

The eight year old UN Convention on the Rights of the Child must not only be

adopted, but fully implemented and built on national laws. Legislation is of

no use if the new laws are not enforced and resources made available.The

will to protect children must come first hand.

Mrs Gradin is responsible for police and judicial cooperation as well as

for immigration and asylum policies and drugs fighting within the European

Commission. She said that it is already obvious that international

cooperation has helped identifying paedophile networks. Both Interpol and

Europol will be increasingly important here.

Mrs Gradin said that the European Commission is working on a number of

fronts against exploitation of children. She will soon present a

Communication on the basis of recommendations from the conference she

organised on sexual exploitation of women in Vienna in June. The

Communication will be broad and cover migration, judicial and police

cooperation, social aspects, the need for preventive measures and support

for victims.

The Commission will also propose measures against sex tourism this Autumn.

Mrs Gradin welcomes that some governments already have started to prosecute

own citizens having sexually offended children abroad.

Modern information technology like video links have already been used in

such cases for presenting evidence and statements by witnesses.

Modern technology, however, also has a darker side. Child pornography and

paedophile networks find an outlet in the information networks. The

Commission will in the future propose action to various kinds of offending

use of information networks such as Internet. This will not be easy since

the freedom of expression is a fundamental right and has to remain so.

- However, a child pornographer or a paedophile can have no freedom to hide

behind.

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