On 25 November 2025, representatives of nine national partner institutions involved in responding to and preventing violence against children convened at a roundtable discussion in Baku, Azerbaijan in the framework of a Council of Europe project in order to review and discuss the final version of an analysis report on the Azerbaijani legislation, policies and practices for preventing and combating online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA).
The report presented at the roundtable was developed based on the review of the domestic legal, policy frameworks, and practices on OCSEA as well as findings of the onsite-assessment interviews conducted on 22-23 July 2025 in Baku, and was later refined in light of written feedback received from national project partners in October this year. This Analysis report, is an update to the Analysis conducted in 2019 under the Council of Europe Project End Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse @Europe (EndOCSEA@Europe), and aims to provide a roadmap with recommendations for further improvement of the national implementation of relevant international standards, including the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (the Lanzarote Convention) and the Convention on Cybercrime (the Budapest Convention), both of which Azerbaijan is a state party to.
Through the workshop participants engaged in a constructive discussion and exchange of additional insights on the report, as well as acknowledging the importance of the issue, and necessity of continuing efforts and ensuring inter-agency and multi-disciplinary coordination and cooperation in this area. Some of the participants underlined strong interest in exploring promising practices from other CoE member states, in particular the Barnahus model, and also highlighted the key role of preventive measures, sexuality education at early developmental stage, and awareness-raising activities, especially among parents and children on risks associated with the children’s use of information technologies and safeguards against OCSEA.
The project will continue until the end of 2026 and will deliver a number of further activities focused on capacity building, awareness raising, and support for strengthening national frameworks for improved protection of children from violence, sexual exploitation and abuse, including in the digital environment.
This activity was organised in the framework of the project on “Protection of children from violence and sexual exploitation and abuse, including in the digital environment, in Azerbaijan” under the Council of Europe Action Plan for the Azerbaijan (2022-2026).