Splintered Lives - Barnardo's

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chapter
13 Developing
a children's rights framework
In this chapter we point to outstanding issues which need to be addressed if a children's
rights approach to sexual exploitation is to develop.
Gaps in knowledge
The Council of Europe has called for yearly data on arrests, prosecutions, convictions
and seizures of child pornography, including: the nature and commercial scope of
offenses; profits made; penalties imposed; the age, gender and nationality of children
involved; and whether international networks were involved. Whilst this information is a
basic requirement for monitoring the current situation, producing it would require a
research officer in each country collecting and collating it.
Whilst calls for exchange of information demonstrate some kind of priority for an issue,
they are based on the presumption that the information exists, or can be relatively
easily created in the form required. The Social Services Inspectorate (SSI) has
attempted to track organised abuse cases, the Manchester University research collected
data for recent years (Gallagher et aI 1994), and OPS have been tracking rings, BUT
there is currently still is no formalised and agreed ways of tracking and recording these
cases in Britain, let alone all child protection cases where pornography and/or
prostitution is an issue. It is extremely unlikely that linkages exist currently with
immigration officers with regard to possible trafficking cases.
We outline below a process which might produce a common protocol in Britain, which
could be evaluated over a 12 month period, and then form the basis for exploring cross
European agreement.
At minimum there needs to be:
�� Agreement on the information we want to collect (for example the presence of
pornography/prostitution in all sexual abuse cases?; the extent of sexual abuse
rings? the extent commercialised child pornography and child prostitution?).
�� Once this agreement has been reached the data recording should be piloted
and liaison/comparison made with other European child protection
organisations.
�� The original model should be adapted in light of its use and comparison, and a
model produced which could be implemented nationally and adapted
internationally.
�� Negotiations should then take place with government and national bodies for
formal adoption of the information collation model.
�� The designation and allocation of resources to a location for a central register
which would collate national data.
We are aware that some expertise already exists in this sphere, and recommend a