I. Draft resolution [link to adopted text]

1. Viewing with profound indignation and sadness the crimes committed against children, recently in Belgium but also in several other European countries, the Assembly recalls that the sexual exploitation of children is an unacceptable violation of human rights.

2. These events, which have revealed the existence and development of organised paedophile networks involving young children and the horror of trafficking in children in Europe, have disclosed shortcomings and deficiencies in judicial and police cooperation in Europe.

3. The Assembly has issued constant reminders that children are vulnerable and "are in need of special assistance, care and protection" (Recommendation 1121(1990)).

4. The Assembly recalls its Recommendation 1065 (1987) on the traffic in children and other forms of child exploitation, in which it urged the enactment of "strict laws and regulations to combat child pornography and harmonise member states' relevant legislation", and strongly calls on member states to combat child pornography in whatever form (publications, video, Internet).

5. The Assembly calls upon the member states of the Council of Europe to unite their efforts and their resources to combat child prostitution, trafficking and pornography, in order that the sexual exploitation of children may cease and calls for increased international cooperation.

6. The Assembly welcomes the efforts currently being made to promote the cause of children and fully subscribes to the conclusions and agenda for action of the World Congress against commercial sexual exploitation of children, held in Stockholm on 27-31 August 1996.

7. The Assembly recalls that in its Recommendation 1286 (1996), it recommended to the Committee of Ministers that the work concerning child protection be given absolute priority, and that a permanent multidisciplinary structure be set up, able to deal with all issues relating to children.

8. The Assembly recalls that in its Recommendation 1121 (1990) and its Opinion No. 186 (1995), it requests the Committee of Ministers to draft an additional protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, on children's rights, in order to make them legally enforceable.

9. The Assembly asks the member states to support work on the drafting of an optional protocol to the United Nations' International Convention on the Rights of the Child, on child trafficking, prostitution and pornography.

10. The Assembly calls upon such of the member states as have not yet done so:

i. to sign, ratify and implement the 1989 International Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Convention on the Exercise of Children's Rights;

ii. to sign, ratify and implement the relevant Council of Europe criminal law conventions (European Convention on Extradition and its Protocols, European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, etc).

11. The Assembly recalls the need, stated in its Recommendations 1121 (1990) and 1286 (1996), to develop information programmes and preventive measures and in particular:

i. to create an appropriate structure in every country, at local or national level, which could inform the children on their rights, counsel them and intervene on their behalf;

ii. to promote campaigns to inform children and their parents, but also to provide educational and psychological care for children who are victims of sexual exploitation.

12. The Assembly encourages the member states to reinforce punitive measures at national level and to adopt criminal legislation on child prostitution without delay. It underlines especially the need:

i. to include in their criminal legislation the principle of extraterritorial prosecution and conviction of offences;

ii. to foresee sufficiently long statutory limitation for the prosecution of offences against minors (at least 20 years, and a time-limit for starting proceedings that extends at least 5 years beyond the age of majority);

iii. to create the following new criminal offences liable to sufficiently deterrent sentences:

a. the possession of pornographic material involving children;

b. the manufacture, transport and distribution of pornographic material showing minors;

c. the broadcasting and recording of pornographic pictures of minors;

iv. to enact legislation providing that all sexual offences involving children should be classified as serious offences; such offences should under no circumstances be included in a category of less serious offences;

v. to harmonise, as far as possible throughout Europe, the treatment of sexual offenders, in particular concerning release on parole, psychological supervision and social monitoring.

13. The Assembly asks member states to take concrete measures to put an end to sex tourism, in particular to enable criminal and administrative measures to be brought against travel agencies and tour operators (withdrawal of licence, fines, etc.).

14. Furthermore, the Assembly advocates that programmes of specific training for professionals working with children (teachers, judges, lawyers, etc) be introduced within member states, and that specially trained units be set up in the police and in the courts to take care of minors who are victims of sexual abuse.

15. The Assembly observes that national action is limited and cannot be effective in combatting exploitation and trafficking in organised networks, and calls upon the member states to reinforce transfrontier judicial and police cooperation in Europe; it fully supports the initiatives aimed at improving the Europol system.

16. Finally, the Assembly renews its proposal to create a European Children's Ombudsman, in the framework of the Council of Europe.

II. Explanatory memorandum

by Mrs ERR

1. Recent occurrences in Belgium, but also in Austria and France, have highlighted the scale and seriousness of the problem of child prostitution and of the trafficking and abuse suffered by children in Europe. The international community has hitherto been concerned about Asian sex tourism, which it has strongly condemned[1]; however, the revelation of the existence on European soil of trafficking in children for sexual purposes, of paedophilia and pornography networks, and the appearance of sex tourism in such countries as Romania and Poland, compel immediate recognition and the implementation of appropriate legal means to combat and stop this constantly growing scourge.

2. In Europe the number of children living in risk situations is greater than ever. Children suffer grave physical and psychological abuse: they are victims of violence, ill-treatment by members of their family or entourage, incest, prostitution, pornography, slavery, forced labour, abduction, illegal adoption, etc. The violence perpetrated against children is of various kinds and not always sexual. For many years, the Council of Europe has sought to denounce all these forms of duress and exploitation and has repeatedly advocated action to prevent and combat violence against minors.

3. The Parliamentary Assembly itself has adopted a number of texts dealing with the protection of children[2] and has this year again called for defence of the cause of children and furtherance of a strategy for children[3] which would make children's rights a political priority, based on the principle of "first call for children". Today, faced with the urgency of this dramatic situation, the Assembly must give absolute priority to combating the sexual exploitation of children in all its forms and call for the mobilisation of resources at all levels.

4. Most international organisations have already repeatedly sounded the alarm. The World Congress against the commercial sexual exploitation of children, jointly organised by UNICEF in Stockholm on 27-31 August 1996, because of its media impact, served to highlight this new awareness and emphasised the need for coordinated, concerted international action. The Council of Europe, which was closely involved in the preparation of the Stockholm Congress, will be sure to do its part in promoting its recommendations.

5. The Assembly's Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee has already decided to prepare, in cooperation with UNICEF, a report on the sexual exploitation of children and work exploitation, as a follow-up to the Stockholm Conference. Its Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights is drafting a report on trafficking in women and forced prostitution, which it intends to present at the January 1997 part-session. In this context, it would be useful to carry out a comparative study of the legislation of member states, in order to determine a basis for harmonisation.

A. Trafficking and sexual exploitation of Children in Europe

6. The development of child prostitution has been especially rapid and alarming in the countries of central and eastern Europe. However, it is very difficult to determine with any accuracy the number of minors involved. If there are said to be between one and two million worldwide, how many are there in Europe ? A report by ECPAT[4] presented at a joint Council of Europe/UNICEF meeting in Strasbourg on 25-26 April 1996 in preparation for the Stockholm Congress, quotes a figure of 100,000 abandoned children engaging in prostitution in eastern Europe, in Russia and Romania, some of them barely 7 years of age. More and more western paedophiles are taking an interest in these areas of prostitution, either as "ordinary" tourists, or as active members of trafficking networks. Eastern Europe appears to have become a "paedophile supermarket", as a French newspaper headline trumpeted recently. Warsaw is said to boast 5,000 child prostitutes. In Poland alone, over 400 people were convicted in 1995 for having sexual relations with minors aged under 15. A network exploiting 70 Czech and Slovak minors was dismantled in Austria at the beginning of September. However, most of the "clients" of child prostitution are not "tourists", but, on the contrary, are regular local "clients".

7. East-West child prostitution networks have been set up. For girls, these networks follow the same routes as for adult prostitution: they are recruited in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Romania, through small ads or directly by touts, and are sent into prostitution in Poland, Hungary, the Baltic states and other central European countries attracting sex tourists, or in the West. The Czech Republic and Slovakia, because of their closeness to Germany and Austria, but also owing to less strict legislation, have become favoured destinations for sex tourism.

8. Prostitution networks of young boys and youths, mostly Romanian and to a lesser extent Polish and Czech, follow different routes, taking them to certain western capitals, especially Berlin, where they are said to number 2,000.

B. Reinforcement of international instruments

9. Internationally, children are protected by numerous instruments: the Declaration on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the League of Nations in 1924, the 1949 Convention for the suppression of the traffic in persons and of the exploitation of the prostitution of others, the 1959 Declaration on the Rights of the Child, the 1989 United Nations International Convention on the Rights of the Child. The last of these which, for the first time, calls for efforts to combat prostitution, trafficking and pornography involving minors[5], has been remarkably successful, having been signed by 188 countries to date. Unfortunately, most of the international conventions and other texts are vague and do not constitute "minimum standards".

10. That is no doubt the reason why the United Nations Commission on Human Rights decided to draw up an optional protocol on prostitution, child pornography and trafficking in children to supplement and clarify the 1989 Convention.

11. The Council of Europe has also set out to promote children's rights. The European Convention of January 1996 on the Exercise of Children's Rights contains procedural measures designed to enable children to avail themselves of their rights. It seeks "in the best interests of children, to promote their rights, to grant them procedural rights and facilitate the exercise of these rights by ensuring that children are, themselves or through other persons or bodies, informed and allowed to participate in proceedings affecting them before a judicial authority". The European Social Charter[6] and the Revised European Social Charter, adopted on April 1996, are also instruments protecting children's rights.

12. However, this Convention does not specifically seek to combat child trafficking and child prostitution, and leaves, moreover, a broad margin of discretion to the contracting states. The Assembly should accordingly renew its Recommendation 1121(1990), calling for the drafting of an additional protocol to the European Human Rights Convention, on children's rights. The point of this idea is to make children's rights legally enforceable, so that they can be claimed before the Court and Commission of Human Rights and will be effectively guaranteed, without duplicating the 1989 Convention.

13. However, combatting child prostitution and trafficking requires a range of measures which must be taken at national level. Many of these indispensable measures are clearly stated in Recommendation (91) 11 adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in 1991, concerning sexual exploitation, pornography and prostitution of, and trafficking in, children and young adults, to which we cannot but subscribe.

C. Reinforcement of national criminal measures to combat trafficking in and sexual exploitation of children

14. Such measures are indispensable and are the most effective means of combatting the sexual exploitation of children, as shown by Asian countries' recent legislation. They must no longer be aimed only at the victims of sexual exploitation, as is the case in countries where prostitution is outlawed by the Criminal Code - because these children must not be punished, but protected - but at the pimps, paedophile "clients" and media that use photographs, videos and other material for pornographic purposes, travel agencies and tour operators involved in sex tourism.

15. This approach is entirely in line with Assembly Recommendation 1286 (1996) which called upon the member states to promote "judicial and administrative systems which recognise the claims of individual children for protection against all forms of abuse".

16. The first requirement is to propose measures to harmonise national legislation to protect children, prosecute paedophilia, and to encourage amendment of national criminal law.

17. In Europe, the examples of stricter national legislation are encouraging, particularly since 1994-95 with the introduction of the notion of extraterritorial prosecution and conviction. In a dozen west European countries, including Germany, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France and Sweden, those responsible for sexual abuse of children can be prosecuted and convicted in the country of which they are nationals for offences committed abroad. The extraterritorial principle must be incorporated into the criminal law of the other European countries.

18. The European Parliament has recently made a number of proposals to this effect. In its resolution of 17 September 1996 on the observance of human rights in the European Union, it called upon the member states to criminalise procuring and sexual abuse of minors committed by their citizens abroad (sex tourism) and to treat them on the same footing as within their own country.

19. The subjection of children to sexual relations with adults must systematically be made a criminal offence, including when the perpetrators are members of the child's family or entourage. Legislation must be harmonised as regards rape, a common definition of rape must be adopted, and rape must become a crime.

20. Similarly, statutory limitation for the prosecution of offences against minors must allow enough time (at least 20 years, and a time limit for starting proceedings that extends at least 5 years beyond the age of majority), to enable young victims personally to bring charges after reaching full age for offences committed much earlier. It is a striking feature of cooperation in Europe that a person previously convicted and having served his sentence in one state is not regarded as a re-offender if he commits the same offences in another state and so is not liable to the increased sentence normally provided for in the case of repeat offences.

21. New offences will have to be created. The possession of pornographic material involving children; the manufacture, transport and distribution of pornographic material showing minors or likely to be seen by minors; the broadcasting and recording of pornographic pictures of minors must be made criminal offences liable to sufficiently deterrent sentences (non-suspended prison sentences, heavy fines).

22. The reinforcement of national legislation against sex tourism must enable criminal charges to be brought against "specialist" travel agencies and tour operators. According to the 1985 Tourism Bill of Rights and the Tourist Code of the World Tourism Organisation, tourism professionals and states must prevent "any possibility of using tourism for purposes of exploiting" the prostitution of others. Any violation of this principle must give rise to criminal and administrative measures (withdrawal of licence, fines).

23. The establishment of programmes and measures to protect witnesses and victims should also be envisaged.

D. Reinforcement of international judicial and police cooperation

24. However, the available armoury of treaties and legislation is not alone sufficient to put the prostitution networks out of action. It would be wrong to think that paedophiles at present enjoy complete impunity: the problem is one not so much of legislation as of prosecution. Only multilateral, transfrontier cooperation can help.

25. Better cooperation between Europe's judicial systems is essential in order to prevent criminal networks benefitting from a lack of international cooperation, of information exchange, of coordination of judicial proceedings. Over the years, the Council of Europe has developed an array of criminal law treaties (Convention on Extradition, ...) which would be all the more effective if all the member states subscribed to them. Similarly, the EUROPOL Convention's entry into force in the member countries' of the European Union should constitute a considerable step forward.

26. The setting up of a European information network (police records, etc) under the EUROPOL Convention will facilitate police cooperation, the only way of combatting such organised crime networks. For this purpose, Europol's brief should be widened to include paedophile networks, child pornography and child trafficking, particularly by establishing a central file of information concerning both paedophiles and procurers, and missing children. The UN also envisages setting up an international police register of convicted paedophiles.

27. The development of new communication technologies, which have vastly extended possibilities for expression, globalising information exchange and protecting anonymity, and their use for pornographic purposes, alone raises virtually insoluble problems in terms of the effectiveness of criminal legislation. Combatting pornography on the Internet, which enables both actual and virtual child pornography to be broadcast, entails adapting legislation and making operators responsible.

E. Development of preventive measures and information programmes

28. The Assembly's Recommendation 1286 (1996) urged the member states to provide children with the necessary information about the means and remedies open to them for violation of their fundamental rights and, for example, to make free telephone help-lines generally available to victims.

29. In 1985, the Committee of Independent Experts of the European Social Charter in 1985 emphasised the importance of a children's ombudsman able to act of his own accord or to be alerted directly by the child victims. In Recommendation 1121 (1990) the Assembly urged the member states to "appoint a special ombudsman for children, who could inform them of their rights, counsel them, intervene and, possibly, take legal action on their behalf". Such ombudsmen already exist in Sweden, Austria and Iceland, but the scheme is most fully developed in Norway. In large countries, ombudsmen should be appointed at local level.

30. Priority should be given to information and awareness campaigns aimed at children, in schools, and their parents. More specifically, programmes of assistance and counselling for children at risk or subjected to sexual exploitation should be set up in each state. Similarly, all the member countries should improve training for personnel having to deal with victims. Such measures may also be implemented for all professions working with children, the judiciary (judges, lawyers, police ...), as well as for non-legal professions (psychologists, teachers), especially in the countries of central and eastern Europe most affected by child trafficking, possibly under existing Council of Europe programmes.

31. In this connection, support from NGOs working in this field is essential and governments will need to cooperate with them. It is largely their action that has made governments aware of the extent of the problem. NGOs must thus be able to take part in legal proceedings concerning the sexual abuse of children.

32. The problem of child prostitution brings with it the problem of these children's health, particularly with the life-threatening spread of AIDS. A policy for prevention and screening, but also medical care, for these children must be set up in all the member countries.

Reporting committee: Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights

Budgetary implications for the Assembly: none

Reference to committee: Assembly decision of 23 September 1996 for an urgent procedure debate

Draft resolution adopted unanimously by the committee on 24 September 1996

Members of the Committee: Mr Hagård (Chairperson), Mr Schwimmer, Mrs Err (Vice-Chairpersons) Mrs Aguiar, MM Akçali, Alexander, Arbnori (alternate: Pollo), Bartumeu Cassany, Berti, Bindig, Bobelis, Bu_ar, Cimoszewicz (alternate: Bartodziej), Cioni, Clerfayt, Columberg, Deasy, Dees, Deniau, Fenech, Filimonov, Fogas (alternate: Fico), Frunda, Fuhrmann, Fydorov, Mrs Gelderblom-Lankhout, MM Grimsson, Guenov, Gürel, Mrs Holand (alternate: Mrs Ringstad), MM Holovatiy, Hunault, Jansson, Jaskiernia, Jeambrun, Kelam, Kirkhill, Koschyk, Kovalev (alternate: Zhirinovsky), Kyprianou, La Russa, Loutfi, Maginas, Magnusson, Martins, Mészáros, Moeller, Németh, Mrs Noveská, MM Pantelejevs, Poppe, Prokop, Rathbone, Rhinow, Robles Fraga (alternate: López Henares), Rodeghiero, Rokofyllos, Severin, Solé Tura, Solonari, Stretovych, Tahiri, Weyts, Mrs Wohlwend.

N.B. The names of those members who took part in the meeting are printed in italics.

Secretaries to the committee: Mr Plate, Ms Chatzivassiliou, Ms Kleinsorge and Ms Clamer.

[1] See for example the Parliamentary Assembly's Recommendation 1065 (1987) on the traffic in children and other forms of child exploitation, and the report by Mr Stoffelen (Doc. 7555).

[2] Eg Recommendation 1121 (1990) on the rights of children.

[3] Recommendation 1286 (1996) on a European strategy for children, and report by Mr Cox (Doc 7436).

[5] Article 34: "States Parties undertake to protect the child from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. For these purposes, States Parties shall in particular take all appropriate national, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent:

a) the inducement or coercion of a child to engage in any unlawful sexual activity;

b) the exploitative use of children in prostitution or other unlawful sexual practices;

c) the exploitative use of children in pornographic performances and materials".

[6] Article 7 ensures the protection of children and young persons, including protection against physical and moral dangers outside the working environment.