Strengthening National and International Efforts, Including with the Private Sector, to Protect Children From Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

A/RES/77/233View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 109Crime prevention and criminal justice, published in 2022.

Who cites this mandate in the budget?

1 entity

Extracted automatically from each entity’s budget submission.

What subjects does this mandate have?

6 topics

Child Abuse Child Welfare Crime Prevention Criminal Justice International Cooperation Sex Crimes

What does this mandate say?

22 operative paragraphs

Encourages Member States to engage in dialogue and foster cooperation with relevant Internet service and access providers that fall under their jurisdictions to promote and ensure child safety and well-being and to cooperate with a view to combating child sexual exploitation and abuse;

Calls upon Member States to establish and strengthen public-private partnerships and dialogues, consistent with their domestic legal frameworks, with Internet service and access providers to facilitate or encourage the use of services that are safe by design and do not compromise children’s safety and to use appropriate measures to enable the detection and reporting of online child sexual exploitation and abuse, or to provide evidence in response to legal processes, regardless of the technology used online, including encryption and anonymizing tools, while protecting the privacy of users and victims;

Also calls upon Member States to take appropriate measures to restrict, in accordance with domestic law, access to child sexual abuse materials in cyberspace;

Urges Member States to criminalize all forms of child sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, including child sexual exploitation and sexual abuse online, to grant law enforcement agencies appropriate authority and to provide appropriate tools to identify victims and effectively combat child sexual exploitation and sexual abuse and bring perpetrators to justice;

Urges States parties to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography to implement their legal obligations under that protocol;

Encourages Member States to adopt legislative and other measures to prevent and protect children from violence and harm, including online sexual exploitation and abuse, including by considering measures, suitable for their domestic contexts, requiring the prevention, detection, reporting and removal of online child sexual exploitation and abuse materials, including technology-facilitated solicitation, online grooming and the hosting of child sexual abuse materials on online servers;

Also encourages Member States, consistent with national legal frameworks, to make appropriate legislative and policy efforts, including strengthening existing legislation, to enable law enforcement authorities to prevent and respond to online child sexual exploitation and abuse, and to protect children from online sexual exploitation and abuse and actively engage in international police cooperation to that end;

Invites Member States to consider best practices from other Member States, in particular those that encourage the private sector to enhance its efforts to combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse by developing and promoting voluntarily agreed industry-wide standards for online child safety that foster transparency and cooperation between the private and public sectors;

Calls upon Member States to exchange information and insights on their respective domestic legislation, policies, procedures and practices, as well as their experience and knowledge, including with regard to national reporting regimes for online child sexual exploitation and abuse materials, to allow cross-jurisdictional collaboration and to foster best practices;

Also calls upon Member States to recognize the need for and promote common data sets, for or among competent authorities, of known child sexual abuse materials, such as the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) International Child Sexual Exploitation database, for the purpose of detecting, reporting and removing materials, including images and videos of child sexual exploitation and abuse, from online servers, and to work towards an appropriate alignment of terminology of child sexual abuse materials to protect the safety and privacy of victims and to prevent their repeated exploitation and abuse;

Further calls upon Member States to promote awareness of the urgent need for action by Governments, Internet service and access providers and other actors to protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse, and to facilitate dialogue between the different entities and sectors required for an effective response;

Urges Member States to increase public awareness of the serious nature of child sexual exploitation and child sexual abuse materials, how such materials constitute sexual offences against children and how the production, distribution and consumption of such materials put more children at risk of sexual exploitation and abuse, including by normalizing the conduct depicted in such materials and fuelling the demand for such materials;

Calls upon Member States to develop effective gender- and age-sensitive strategies for preventing and combating child sexual exploitation and abuse, including by ensuring that institutions providing services to children are equipped with appropriate safeguards to prevent and intervene early, and for building protective factors in families, households and communities to impede offenders’ efforts both online and offline;

Also calls upon Member States to develop strategies that prevent and combat child exploitation and abuse and, through advocacy, awareness-raising and educational initiatives, challenge the shame and stigma that victims can suffer, and to foster collaboration and information-sharing at the strategic and operational levels among Governments, educational institutions, front-line agencies, the private sector, civil society, including leaders who have experienced child sexual abuse and exploitation, the media and the public in order to promote child safety and well-being;

Further calls upon Member States, in accordance with their domestic legal frameworks and applicable international law, to strengthen international cooperation to combat child sexual abuse and exploitation online through, where appropriate, mutual legal assistance and extradition as well as police-to-police and agency-to-agency cooperation, among others, in order to counter such crimes and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice and victims are identified, while respecting the right of children to privacy;

Calls upon Member States to develop effective measures to enhance the capacities of their justice systems to prevent and respond to child sexual exploitation and abuse, including training in child forensic interviewing, in victim-centred approaches to avoid retraumatization of victims and in the proper handling and processing of digital evidence, and to build public trust in relation to engaging with and reporting to law enforcement authorities;

Stresses the need to engage effectively with persons who have experienced child sexual abuse and exploitation, as well as their wider support networks and communities, taking into account their particular characteristics and not excluding any child on the basis of any characteristic or condition, including gender, age, disability, belief or ethnicity;

Also stresses the need to enhance cooperation among Member States to prevent and combat child sexual exploitation and abuse and reinforce the provision of technical assistance to requesting States to enhance the capacity of national authorities to deal with child sexual exploitation and abuse in all their forms;

Requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to assist Member States, upon request, in creating age- and gender-sensitive strategies and responses for preventing and combating child sexual exploitation and abuse, to improve understanding of child sexual exploitation and abuse internationally and to foster the cross-sector responses required, including from Internet service and access providers;

Encourages Member States to promote the proactive sharing of best practices and public policies on support for persons who have experienced child sexual abuse and exploitation, in order to protect children from child sexual exploitation and abuse, including online;

Requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to provide technical assistance and capacity-building initiatives, such as training in the use of digital evidence, material support and services and other initiatives, upon request, to support Member States, in particular developing countries, in preventing and combating online child sexual exploitation and abuse, and invites Member States to provide support in this regard;

Invites Member States and other donors to provide extrabudgetary resources for the implementation of the relevant paragraphs of the present resolution, in accordance with the rules and procedures of the United Nations.

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