The Marche Blanche (White March) association, which has lobbied for a tougher stance against paedophiles in Switzerland, is to break up, it has been announced.
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Its president, Christine Bussat, confirmed the move, which comes after ten years, to Swiss public radio on Thursday. She will, however, see through the initiatives already launched.
White March, a non-political association set up by a group of parents, said in April that it had collected enough signatures to call a popular vote on whether convicted paedophiles should be banned for life from working with minors and dependent persons.
It was also behind a popular vote, passed in 2008 to much surprise – the government had argued it would be difficult to implement and had put forward a compromise – to lift the statute of limitations on paedophile crimes.
“My personal mission has ended,” Bussat said. But the association will not dissolve straightaway as Bussat wants to ensure that work on the two votes continues. In particular, she said that the stipulations of the 2008 vote had not yet been fully written into the penal code. However, she said she would not be “starting any new battles”.
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