On 05 February 2021, the members of the Steering Committee of the project End OCSEA@Europe held their fourth meeting to discuss the positive results of the project at national level, the forthcoming activities until June 2021 and future potential areas for future cooperation. Members provided information about important ongoing national reforms related to online child sexual abuse and exploitation (OCSEA). These related in particular to the preparation of Cybersecurity national strategies with special measures to tackle OCSEA, the specialisation of judges to address cases of child sexual abuse including online, steps to establish Children’s House/ Barnahus on the basis of good practices in other countries in the region and the launch of campaigns to prevent and protect children from all forms of sexual violence including online.
The four project grantees from national civil society organisations from Ukraine, Serbia, Montenegro, and the Republic of Moldova were also invited to present the results of their impressive capacity-building and awareness-raising activities which involved approximately10.000 children and 300 professionals and stakeholders working in the field of OCSEA, in particular from law enforcement, policy makers, and social service providers.
Members welcomed the recent and future work of the project in particular: the various trainings on OCSEA in Ukraine, and in Turkey in 2020 and the planned ones in 2021 including in Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Republic of Moldova; the leaflet "So, this is sexual abuse?" which was translated, disseminated and used, as well as the new materials for young children (4-7 years old) and their parents “Kiko and the Manymes” which will also be made available in the 10 project languages. They also welcomed the future update of the Baseline Mapping report on member states responses to prevent and combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse which will provide more recent data in this area and will include recommendations to improve the fight against OCSEA in particular in times of crisis.
Acknowledgements:
The Council of Europe gratefully acknowledges the financial support provided for this programme by the End Violence Fund.
Awareness-raising video developed by the Women’s Consortium of Ukraine