Swiss stress child protection at conference on sex trade

Switzerland will push for "zero tolerance" at the 2nd World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children. www.focalpointgo.org

More than 3,000 delegates from 119 countries -- including Switzerland -- have gathered for an international meeting to combat the child sex trade.

The four-day conference kicked off in Yokohama, Japan, on Monday.

The head of the Swiss delegation, Jean-François Giovannini, told swissinfo that a key priority was to agree a legal framework within existing international law to combat the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

“We should always base our work around the convention on the rights of the child,” Giovannini said. “It is the most widely ratified human rights instrument in the world and remains the basis for all our efforts.”

Zero tolerance

Giovannini said the Swiss delegation would be pushing conference delegates to adopt a common policy of “zero tolerance” for all forms of commercial exploitation of children.

“The international community must really work together to improve the efficiency of their work against the development of criminal activities against children.”

Governments and NGOs first came together to discuss how best to combat the sexual exploitation of children five years ago, at an international congress in Stockholm, Sweden.

Giovannini told swissinfo he believed some progress in the global fight against sexual exploitation has been made since the Stockholm conference.

“As far as Switzerland is concerned, we have developed a few measures, ” he said.

“We have adopted… legislation which makes it possible to take action in Switzerland against people who reside on Swiss territory but who committed acts abroad.”

Child pornography

But the head of the Swiss delegation also indicated he would like to see a tightening of existing national legislation to ensure that “even the possession of child pornographic material is a crime” in Switzerland.

Giovannini also told swissinfo that a consensus at the conference was crucial if the international community wanted to fight against the child sex trade in the 21st century.

“The development of information technology and the Internet makes it easier for criminals to organise their trade,” he said.

Giovannini said the issue of whether the sexual exploitation of children should be made a crime against humanity was also likely to be on the agenda in Yokohama.

“It’s something we have to discuss and maybe take it up later,” he said.

“This is a very grave crime… because the whole life of the child is destroyed, so I think whether we define it as [a crime against humanity] or not is an issue we should take seriously.”

swissinfo with agencies