Switzerland urged to combat child sex trade

Switzerland slower than other countries to crack down on child sex trade Keystone Archive

Switzerland lags behind other European nations in fighting child prostitution, says the head of a Swiss delegation to a world congress in Japan.

Jean-François Giovannini, who attended the second World Congress against child sexual exploitation in Yokohama, Japan, told swissinfo on Thursday he would try to persuade the Swiss government to establish a federal agency to coordinate the fight against child prostitution.

Giovannini said Switzerland had fallen behind policing efforts of EU nations, particularly Scandinavia, where cross-border cooperation and standardised penalties have yielded significant results.

Internet porn

He said that while Switzerland had enacted strong laws barring its citizens from committing crimes overseas, authorities had been slow to combat Internet pornography, coordinate its police forces and educate the public on the magnitude of the problem.

There is an urgent need to target loopholes that allow child sex criminals to misuse the Internet, he said.

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

“We have to act more decisively in the future. We have to face a situation that is more difficult than it was five years ago.”

The admission comes as governments and NGOs wind up the meeting in Japan, which is a follow-up to a groundbreaking 1996 summit in Stockholm that triggered the first serious international efforts to stem the child sex trade.

Cantons “ill-equipped”

Giovannini said a key problem was the lack of a centralised authority in Switzerland, which was exacerbated by the divide between federal and cantonal responsibilities.

“Certainly the confederation has to take a greater responsibility, because the canton is ill-equipped for facing international trade of children by Swiss citizens, ” he said.

The Yokohama meeting was attended by over 3,000 delegates from 119 countries, and provided the first real opportunity in five years for global comparisons on the fight against child prostitution.

“The purpose of the meeting was to compare experiences of others so we could learn. In that sense it was very useful,“ he said.

swissinfo with agencies