OSCE Chairmanship, France and US call for action to combat sexual exploitation of children

WARSAW, 3 October 2006 - The Belgian OSCE Chairmanship, France and the United States today urged states, businesses and NGOs to take action against sexual exploitation of children.

"Sexual exploitation of children is a large-scale international scourge with various manifestations, including pornography, trafficking and sex tourism," said the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht. "It violates human rights and is a serious crime. The OSCE should pro-actively respond to this problem."

The Chairmanship, France and the US co-organized a side-event on the issue at the margins of the OSCE's Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, Europe's largest human rights conference. This meeting is hosted every year by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) in the Polish capital.

At the event, speakers from the non-governmental organizations network, ECPAT International, the French Ministry of Tourism and the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC) called for legislative measures, research, policy monitoring, awareness campaigns, law enforcement training and victim support programmes to tackle sexual exploitation of children.