An effective response to the online exploitation of children requires the cooperation of the police, judiciary and prosecutors, said the head of the OSCE mission in Montenegro, Dominik Vag.
As announced by the OSCE, the participants of the two-day regional conference "Suppression of exploitation of children on the Internet in Southeast Europe", which the Mission in Montenegro is organizing today and tomorrow in Budva, exchanged approaches and experiences.
The participants, as stated, committed to improve regional cooperation, in order to provide an effective response to the online sexual exploitation of children.
At the opening of the conference, Vag said that a strong commitment to provide children with a safe childhood must be renewed.
"As the reach of the Internet expands, so do the threats and dangers that children experience in the online sphere. "Social media platforms can be misused in such a way that children are exposed to sexual exploitation, as well as all forms of child trafficking," Vag said.
She pointed out that the sexual exploitation of children can lead to serious, lifelong consequences for their physical and psychological development and well-being.
"An effective response to the online exploitation of children requires cooperation between the police, the judiciary and prosecutors, as well as with the civil sector, teachers and parents," Vag said.
Vag emphasized that better regional cooperation and ways to exchange data are needed, adding that these criminal activities in many cases involve organized criminal groups.
The Head of the Department for Combating Human Trafficking in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP), Tijana Šuković, said that the Ministry is clearly committed to combating all forms of abuse of children, as well as discovering and sanctioning those who threaten their rights.
"Most often, the issue related to the abuse of social networks is related to the appearance of child pornography. Bearing in mind that people are trafficked, among other things, for pornographic purposes, it is important to pay attention to the abuse of technology by human traffickers", said Šuković.
The vice president of the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC), Guiljermo Galarza Abizaid, said that the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet is a global crime that affects millions of children every day.
"Law enforcement, the technology industry, non-governmental organizations and other actors are key in the fight against online child sexual exploitation," said Abizaid.
As he stated, developing partnerships with key actors is essential and they must continue to deal with policy, legislation, prevention, awareness raising and training for key officials and all relevant actors.
He added that regional events are essential for learning from each other.
"It takes a network to defeat a network," Abizaid pointed out.
Senior police inspector in the high-tech crime prevention sector of the Police Directorate, Ivana Popović, said that, not only in Montenegro, but also beyond, the age of children who actively use social networks is getting lower.
According to her, children aged eight and older have already entered the virtual world, pretending to be older than they are.
"Most of them want to dislocate from reality, which makes them an easy target for predators. In most cases, parents do not know that the child has an account on any of the social networks, nor are they familiar with the correspondence in which their children participate," Popović said. .
She added that it is important for parents to talk to their children and to immediately report any suspicious case to the police, in order to avoid more serious consequences.
The OSCE reminds that in 2013 the member states of that organization committed to train law enforcement officials and other relevant actors in connection with the use of the Internet for human trafficking and related crimes, including all forms of child trafficking and sexual exploitation of children.
The conference was organized with the support of the office of the Special Representative and Coordinator for the fight against human trafficking and the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC) based in the USA, in cooperation with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Montenegro and the Police Directorate.
It is stated that around 50 delegates of police services and cybercrime units, prosecutors and members of non-governmental organizations from Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Hungary, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia, Turkey and the USA presented the experiences of their countries .
"And discussed how to address critical gaps in the protection of children from sexual exploitation on the Internet, strengthen the regional response and assess the needs for training and capacity building," the statement added.
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