Commission aims to stop child abuse

The European Commission is to introduce measures to tackle sex tourism affecting children, child poverty, violent video games and the abuse of minors through the internet.

Franco Frattini, the commissioner for justice, freedom and security, told a seminar in the European Parliament (17 April) on the rights of the child that an awareness-raising campaign had begun involving travel-agents to try to prevent sex tourism. "We are working with those organising holidays to pin-point people who are engaged in such activities," he said.

Frattini also said a proposal next month for tackling cyber-crime would include a chapter on preventing children from being trafficked and abused through the internet. The proposal would seek to work with credit-card companies to monitor and target people using the internet to get access to paedophile material.

A report on poverty affecting children would be ready by October after which the Commission would set up a group of experts to suggest ways to tackle the problem, he said.

Other initiatives include preventing children from using violent video games, a hotline for lost or kidnap-ped children and proposals on abuse of alcohol and drugs by young people.

The proposals follow a communication last year on the promotion of children’s rights through EU policy. The first session of a forum for children’s rights will be held next month in Berlin, discussing the role of the judicial system in protecting children. It will be attended by Frattini, Brigitte Zypries, the German justice minister, non-governmental organi-sations and young people.

The seminar heard that children were suffering even in rich EU states. "We can’t accept that the situation across the EU is so different from one place to another… the economic power of a country is not enough to decide the situation of children," said Wolfgang Dichans, an official representing the German minister for family affairs, Ursula von der Leyen.

Verena Taylor of the Council of Europe said the violation of children’s rights in the EU took the form of violence, corporal punishment, racism and pornography. The role of the Council of Europe was to monitor its member states and pressure them to live up to their obligations under the legal instruments they had signed up to, she said.

The European Commission is to introduce measures to tackle sex tourism affecting children, child poverty, violent video games and the abuse of minors through the internet.