Rabat – A five-day international symposium is being held in Morocco to tackle the sexual exploitation of children online.
Meeting between March 14-18, the five-day event provides a platform for participants to “share best practices” in the fight against online child abuse.
British Ambassador to Morocco, Simon Martin, tweeted on Monday that it was “an honour to be part of Morocco, United Kingdom, United States and United Nations efforts to fight against the sexual exploitation of children online. Today, we launched, together with our partners, a joint symposium to share best practices in tackling this global threat.”
Experts from the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) will be sharing and discussing practices with Moroccan Law Enforcement, prosecutors, and judges, in order to deal with the sexual exploitation of children online.
The five-day symposium is a collaboration between several groups and institutions, including the United Cyber Crime Office, a branch of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the United States Embassy in Morocco, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the General Directorate of National Security (DGSN).
According to the Australian Center to Counter Child exploitation, the sexual exploitation of children online “encompasses a wide range of behaviors and situations. Grooming, live streaming, consuming child sexual abuse material, and coercing and blackmailing children for sexual purposes are all examples of this. This could include an adult conversing with a child about sexual acts.”
UNICEF and AMANE (a Moroccan association fighting sexual exploitation of children), alongside the National Human Rights Council (CNDH) released a survey in 2014 regarding the sexual exploitation of children in Morocco and called for action against it. The symposium extends these efforts to the online sphere, where countless children are being sexually exploited globally.
The FBI has officially been fighting the exploitation of children online since 2006.
Read online: Stolen Lives, Shattered Dreams: Child Soldiers in Africa (and elsewhere)
