1. family and parenting
2. children

Save the Children‟s work against
sexual abuse of children
Annual Report 2010
1
Internet hotline
In 2010, INHOPE began to coordinate the reception of
citizens‟ reports in order to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort. New illegal websites are entered into a
shared database, which will show whether the information has already been entered by other hotlines. At the
same time, the hotline in the country responsible for
acting will be automatically notified.
Information about illegal material in countries other
than those 33 is forwarded to the Danish National Police, who dispatch it to Interpol. It is the National Police‟s IT Investigation Centre (NITEC) which coordinates efforts related to Danish affairs.
For more than 10 years, Danish citizens have been
able to report illegal child pornography to Save the
Children. Since 2001, our hotline for this purpose
has been supported financially by the European
Commission‟s Safer Internet Programme and by the
Ministry of Social Affairs. The effort has been advancing in close cooperation with the Danish National Police, large internet providers in Denmark,
and INHOPE (EU-supported association of civil hotlines from all over the world, see www.inhope.org).
Save the Children‟s effort against the sexual abuse of
children – including a special focus on IT-related
problems – is undertaken by a team of professionals,
who have, over the years, built special expertise in
this field. The team members are often invited to
share their knowledge in Danish as well as international settings.
The work of receiving and processing denunciations
from citizens adheres to special procedures according to common precepts issued by INHOPE and
approved by the Danish National Police. The legality
of each picture and video clip is assessed under the
terms of Danish criminal law. If Save the Children is
able to track down the storage of illegal material to
a server in one of our 33 countries of cooperation,
from Russia to Australia, the information is passed
on to the partner in that country.
As part of the INHOPE cooperation, the Danish hotline staff received a visit from a colleague from the
Dutch hotline Meldpunkt in order to exchange knowledge and experiences.
Over the past 10 years, Save the Children has been an
active member of the international association of hotlines against illegal content, INHOPE. Looking ahead, in
coming years INHOPE will focus more on helping national hotline initiatives to get off the ground, both in
Latin America and in Asia, thus achieving more global
networking coverage and establishing effective channels
of fighting child pornography.
The work of Save the Children is cofunded by EU Safer Internet Program
and the Danish Ministry of Social Affairs
Links to downloads
The hotline receives a growing number of reports
which are not about websites with pictures for everyone to see, but about links to various file-sharing sites,
such as Lix.in and RapidShare. These channels serve
to hide the material from public view, making it
harder to expose the unlawful activity. In addition, the
method enables the placement of very large files (e.g.
whole films). In exchange for payment, the material can
be downloaded at very high speed. After the content
has been uploaded, each user receives a unique
download URL address (e.g. www.download123/lix.in),
so that only a person in possession of this information is
able to download the file. No user can detect it on the
server through a normal web search, so distribution
takes place either by passing on the URL address or by
publishing it on a website, debate forum or the like.
2
Blocking websites with child abuse pictures
Information on all new websites with illegal contents
is sent to the database of the National Police to enter
them into the Danish filter scheme that blocks child
pornographic websites located outside Denmark. The
number of blocked foreign sites is growing steadily,
but at the same time, many of the sites discovered
have a short lifespan. This is partly thanks to intervention and shutdown by the authorities or internet providers in those countries, where the material is physically stored, but also because the sites are moved
between other countries‟ servers under different
names, precisely to circumvent filtering. The Danish National Police make sure that websites that have not been
active for a while are taken off the list. The number of
foreign sites filtered due to illegal contents remains
around 500.
Nevertheless, according to Danish police statistics, every
day thousands of unique IP addresses try to gain access
to these blocked websites. So there is still a great need
for distributing information about online safety to internet users, and about the consequences of searching and
distributing child pornography to offenders.
Go-Card and banner
To draw attention to the possibility of reporting illegal
material to Save the Children, the hotline carried out
a postcard campaign in cooperation with Go-Card,
which distributes free postcards via cafés, restaurants
and cinemas. A total of 33,000 postcards were made
available in week 39. In the course of the campaign
week, 23,000 postcards were picked up, while the
remaining 10,000 were taken in the following weeks.
At the same time, the hotline designed some web
banners, which the hotline team is still working on
placing on relevant websites.
More than 4,000 reports
In 2010, Save the Children‟s hotline received 4,093
reports, where the informant believed to have found
illegal pictures of sexual abuse of children and young
people. 98% of these referred to materials featured
on websites, while the rest was distributed through
peer-to-peer networks, news groups, chat-rooms, and
other channels. Although many pictures can seem
objectionable or be accompanied by words such as
“teen sex” or “family incest”, it is not always certain
that the persons photographed are under 18 years of
age. Upon close scrutiny, Save the Children estimated
that 18% of the reports related to websites with illegal
contents which were previously unknown to us. This
amounts to 736 new illegal websites in 2010, or 14 a
week. Another 100 reports were about websites that
had already been blocked. We note with concern the
proliferation of websites which can be linked to overt
and aggressive marketing of visuals of child sex abuse.
Webhosts in the USA and Russia remain the clear
preference when individuals or firms want to publish
sites with illegal content. We have tracked down
about 400 of these to the USA and about 100 to
Russia. In addition, we have processed more than 100
reports of sites located in Holland, mainly pictures of
children posing in a markedly sexual fashion.
In mid-2010, the Dutch hotline announced that they
have reassessed the criteria for when to classify pictures of posing children as illegal, and happily their
conclusions have turned out for the benefit of children. About 250 times, we have registered visuals of
children who pose, which are not illegal under the
terms of criminal law, yet – in our view –clearly offend
the children‟s dignity.
Other countries with an exceptionally high number of
firms willing to host illegal pictures on their servers are
Germany and Slovakia in Europe, and Japan and South
Korea in Asia.
In over 100 cases, we have been able to ascertain that
a website was closed or removed in the short period
from when the denunciation was submitted to the
time when we checked the information. This is a positive sign that hosting firms are taking notice and intervening. Unfortunately, we do not know whether the
companies concerned also involve the police so as to
have offenders prosecuted, or if they feel it is enough
to remove the contents.
On 21 occasions we have dealt with reports related
to Danish affairs, and these are always passed on to
the National Police.
3
Cooperation in Denmark
IT and telecoms industry
Save the Children attends the meetings of the Danish
Internet Safety Forum (ISP-kredsen) along with major
Danish internet and mobile-phone providers, the
National IT and Telecom Agency, the National Police,
the Telecommunications Industry Association in Denmark, the Danish IT Industry Association (ITB), and
others. 2010 has seen a major restructuring of the
industry associations‟ management, which has lowered the frequency of meetings.
Nevertheless, towards the end of 2010, Save the Children was invited by the Telecommunications Industry
Association in Denmark – along with Children‟s Welfare
in Denmark, Cyberhus (online counselling for young
people), and Digital Dannelse (education in new media)
– to discuss opportunities for improving information for
children about how to use digital media. These deliberations are expected to result in a boost to cooperation
between the industry and organisations dedicated to
children‟s online safety.
The Danish Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
For the second year running, a conference was held in
August on the future of the Internet – the Danish IGF
2010 – convened by the Ministry of Science in cooperation with the Danish Association of IT, Telecom,
Electronics and Communication Businesses under the
Confederation of Danish Industry (DI-ITEK), the Danish Internet Forum, Awareness Node and Save the
Children. Over 200 people attended the event, which
was inaugurated by Minister of Science Charlotte Sahl
-Madsen.
The Danish IGF focuses on issues of particular current
interest in Denmark. The conference is held annually
in the run-up to the international Internet Governance Forum.
In speeches by members of Awareness Node‟s children‟s panel, there was wide agreement that the Internet must be free and available to all. However, the future of the Internet is full of challenges, especially for
children and young people as regards, for instance, enabling users to feel safe online. The children‟s panel called
for greater attention to the education of our young
people in how to use the Internet correctly and safely.
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Illegal pictures can be stored on the job too!
Pictures of sexual exploitation of children can appear in many places. There are examples of employees using their
company‟s email or server system to store or distribute illegal material. Save the Children has entered into cooperation with the firm NetClean, which offers software capable of detecting illegal child pornography on private IT networks. NetClean was installed on Save the Children‟s own computer network in 2009, and we contribute our special
knowledge through a seat on NetClean‟s Advisory Board.
4
Safe Internet in Denmark
Internet and new online technologies. This body now
has 37 members, including authorities, institutions and
organisations representing parents, teachers, educational
establishments, the IT industry and researchers. The
group serves to coordinate national information initiatives, just as expertise is exchanged regarding children‟s
use of the Internet and mobile phones.
Furthermore, Save the Children celebrated Safe Internet
Day 2010 by launching a
newsletter for social workers,
schoolteachers and police
officers about national activities and other materials about
children‟s digital lives. The goal
was to get professionals to
use Safe Internet Day to foster
a dialogue with children and
young people about online
safety.
Since 2001, Save the Children‟s hotline has been financially supported by the European Commission‟s
Safer Internet Programme. After 2009, the assistance
has formed part of an overall EU grant for Safer Internet Centre Denmark, which springs from an alliance
between Awareness Node Denmark (Medierådet for
Børn og Unge), which is in charge of a knowledge
centre, Cyberhus, which is a helpline, and Save the
Children, which runs the hotline.
The website sikkertinternet.dk is the new shared portal for Danish partners of the EU's Safer Internet Programme. The aim of this cooperation is to foster safer
use of the Internet and new online technologies, particularly for children, as well as to stop illegal and unwanted content from reaching end users.
Save the Children takes part in Awareness Node
Denmark‟s working group on children‟s use of the
Court cases in Denmark
Four million pictures of abuse
In October, The City Court of Aarhus sentenced a man to two years in prison in Denmark‟s largest case of child
pornography to date. It is also the harshest punishment thus far imposed for possession and distribution of indecent
pictures or videos with children under the age of 18. The previous record was a prison term of one year.
The police data technicians tracked down the man and subsequently found over four million photos and 15,000
videos on several computers at his home. By using a file-sharing programme, the man had let over 20,000 other
people share in his material over the Internet. In determining the sentence, the law considers distribution to be an
aggravating circumstance compared to mere possession of child pornography.
Abuse through World of Warcraft
A photo of an erect penis won a gold bar, a close-up of buttocks spread wide gave additional points, and then there
was the test in which a pencil had to be pushed up one‟s anus, while filming it, to earn even more gold. Some got
through the whole trial, masturbating in front of the camera and earning bonus points with heavy breathing or going
down doggy-style on all fours. The young people were lured into this through the online game World of Warcraft,
where a man promised them “gold” to play with in exchange for pictures.
In February, a verdict was passed in the case, and the man was sentenced to five years‟ treatment at a closed psychiatric institution.
The public prosecutor lauded the vigilant mother who reported the man, and admonished other parents who are
oblivious to what their children are up to on the Internet.
- I would like to commend this attentive mother who went to the police with her suspicion that abuse had taken
place. Her intervention prevented further offences from taking place, said the prosecutor.
The Facebook molester
In September, the man dubbed “the Facebook molester” was sentenced to three years in prison by the City Court
of Horsens. This was later raised to 3½ years on appeal to the high court.
The 26-year old was convicted of trying to get in contact with underage girls. Impersonating a 12-year-old horse fan
called Anni Hansen, the man wrote to 12-15-year-old girls through Facebook. He then tried to make appointments
with the girls with the goal of having sex with them, though he never succeeded in this.
5
Children‟s online safety
Smart and online
2010 was the year in which sales of smartphones surpassed those of laptop computers. This confirms a trend that
has been long underway: the mobile phone is becoming an increasingly central tool in digital communication,
whether it be for emails, Facebook, Youtube, news or weather forecasts, not to forget old-style text messaging and
voice telephony. Moreover, modern mobile phones have functions such as camera and music player, while the postcard can be replaced by a personal picture from the holiday destination. On the horizon looms GPS localisation, so
that all your friends can see what train you have just boarded! In addition to being a communications tool and a fashion accessory, the mobile phone is also becoming a direct door to the owner‟s private life. Sadly, this can be exploited by people with bad intentions.
Sikker chat - Safe chat
Every year, a host of events are attended by the team
behind information work against digital bullying and
grooming under the aegis of the Save the Childrenrun website “sikkerchat.dk” (“safe chat”). In 2010, this
included the so-called Info Busses in the online universe “Habbo.dk”. On each occasion, we managed to
chat with up to 100 children and young people for 12 hours about digital bullying and different aspects of
taking care of oneself and each other while online.
Likewise, the team took part in a panel debate during
the Buster Children‟s Film Festival. Together with socalled SSP professionals (involved in the cooperation
protocol between municipal social departments,
schools and police), Awareness Node Denmark and
various politicians, we discussed issues such as
“Children and young people as Internet users” and
“how to use new technologies to create and develop
positive social relationships”.
Throughout the year, Save the Children has worked
to strengthen adult professionals‟ competence in
conversing with children about their digital lives. The
aforementioned SSP staff are in daily contact with young
people‟s online issues, and Save the Children has been
organising workshops and talks targeted at this group of
professionals all around Denmark. Just as in foregoing
years, Save the Children attended the SSP Council‟s annual meeting in 2010. Among other activities are talks at
various schools, as well as distribution of materials from our
web portal www.sikkerchat.dk, which provides information
for children, young people, parents and professionals.
The „Chat Check code‟ and „Certified Kid’
In 2007, the Association of Danish Interactive Media
(FDIM, composed of internet providers) introduced a
code of specific guidelines for chat providers about
how to go about, for instance, data logging and other
means of protecting children online. Compliance with
this code gives access to a certification called the
“Chat Mark” (Chatmærket), which was developed in
cooperation with the IT and Telecom Agency, providers of chat services for minors, Save the Children,
Awareness Node Denmark, and the Danish Crime
Prevention Council. FDIM runs the scheme, and a
Chat Mark Commission has been designated with
two representatives from Save the Children and the
Crime Prevention Council, two from the chat providers, and one from FDIM‟s board, who chairs the commission.
In April 2008, Arto became the first firm to be
awarded the Chat Mark, and in December 2008, GoSuperModel followed suit. However, the Danish Data
Protection Agency was highly critical of the logging
provisions (of the supplier keeping a copy of everything that is written), including the specifications of
the types of communication covered by the logging
requirement. Sadly, the scheme has since stalled. Meanwhile, several social networking sites for children in Denmark have announced plans to shut down in the course
of 2011. Consequently, Save the Children is proposing
that Chat Mark be discontinued in 2011.
From the perspective of children‟s protection, it is regrettable that the certification scheme never caught on.
It adds to the concern that Danish children are increasingly making use of international social networks. This
limits the chances of maintaining and developing a high
Danish safety standard for children, since there is less
scope for exchanging and cooperating with international
websites.
In the course of 2010, Certified Kid has worked to disseminate a digital ID, which was developed in 2009. The
project set out to provide all Danish children, through
their schools, with a digital certificate, containing information on the child‟s age and sex. Accordingly, by looking at the other party‟s certificate, the child will know
these basic personal details of those they chat with, enabling them to see through adults who masquerade as
children. Unfortunately, this initiative has also failed to be
adopted as widely as necessary.
6
Moderator course
Since 2008, the internet safety team – supported
by the Egmont Foundation – has trained online
moderators to be on “digital playground duty”.
This job is undertaken by employees of firms offering online spaces where children and young people
hang out. Online moderators are closest to the
children when conflicts, digital bullying and other
types of crisis occur. Therefore, they are trained to
confront such situations.
Over the years, a number of companies have chosen to have their online moderators trained for
this, including Habbo.dk, TV2 and Andeby.dk, and
this year Lego and DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation) joined “the club”.
E-learning: konflikttrappen
In the summer of 2010, Save the Children opened
the first anonymous online counselling facility specifically focused on children‟s and young people‟s digital
lives. The service is primarily targeted at 12-17-year
olds, who have had unpleasant experiences on the
Internet and mobile phone, and is provided by psychologists with a track record in counselling children
and young people online.
In the course of the first seven months, 215 advisory
conversations were held, of which 159 concerned
issues from the digital world, while 56 were about
other subjects. 21% of the talks addressed bullying
and harassment at school, on the web and/or mobile
phone. 10% were about digital harassment of a sexual
nature and/or outright sexual abuse on the net. The
issues behind this last category vary widely, including,
for instance, receiving unwanted messages with sexual
invitations or unwanted pictures of a sexual nature. Furthermore, young girls reported having been exploited
and/or threatened into posing in front of a webcam in a
sexualised fashion, in one case with an online relationship that turned into physical assault.
34% of the advisory sessions concerned what is classified
as other digital experiences. This term covers, for example, online friendships and web-based romantic relationships. These conversations tend to be of a more preventative nature, as the child or young person turns to
counselling because he or she is considering a face-toface encounter with a chat friend. By contrast, the consultations outlined above are more aimed at finding solutions, since the minor has already gone through something unpleasant or offensive.
Death message from good friend
- One afternoon I received a text message with a long fatal message from one of my
good friends. It really made me sick - it was some really bad things that stood in the
message. For example, that her brother would come and smash me.
Rumors and secrets on Facebook
- All my secrets and a lot of hearsay that was not true, was suddenly posted on Facebook. For instance, one from eighth grade had taken my virginity. Everybody could see
it - even my parents. It was really uncomfortable
Read more about Camilla, Freja and other children on www.redbarnet.dk/buddyguard
7
European projects
ENACSO (European NGO Alliance for Child Safety Online)
ENACSO is a thematic network composed of 21 NGOs from Europe. It is supported by the European Commission‟s Safer Internet Programme. Save the Children Denmark has been the driving force in establishing the network.
Its coordinator is a Save the Children Denmark employee, who also cooperates with our other activities in this
thematic field.
ENACSO‟s purpose is to develop shared views and joint strategies in order to ensure that children‟s needs are
taken into account in discussions about interactive media, both in Europe and in relevant international forums.
Save the Children has been active in drawing up
ENACSO‟s recommendations and policy papers, and
has on several occasions represented the network at
international conferences. See www.enacso.eu
ROBERT
Risktaking Online Behaviour - Empowerment Through Research and Training
This 24-month project (June 2010 to June 2012) is financed by the European Commission‟s Safer Internet Programme. Its aim is to enhance knowledge about children subjected to sexual abuse online. It is led and coordinated
by the Expert Group for Cooperation on Vulnerable Children under the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS)
and its participants include the University of Tartu (Estonia), Linköping University (Sweden), University of Edinburgh
(UK), Save the Children Denmark, Save the Children Italy, Innocence in Danger (Germany), Stellit International
(Holland and Russia), and Kingston University (UK).
The objective of the ROBERT project is to make online interaction safer for children and young people. It will
systematise experiences of concrete cases of online abuse and other
circumstances where children have been vulnerable, while also looking at
factors that have shown to have a protective effect. The strategies of
offenders involved in „grooming‟ of minors online will also be investigated as part of a drive to better understand how abuse can develop in
Internet-based environments. This will make it possible to protect
children and young people better when they are online. Groups of minors perceived as vulnerable will benefit from this in particular.
NFBO conference in May 2010
Save the Children took part in the
planning and holding of the Sixth
Conference of the Nordic Association for Prevention of Child Abuse
and Neglect (NASPCAN). The
event attracted 250 attendants from
all the Nordic countries, and the
subject of sexual abuse was forcefully addressed in many speeches.
8
REACT Raising Empowerment and Awareness against Child Trafficking
This is an EU-funded project in cooperation with NGOs
in Italy, Rumania and Bulgaria. Save the Children has
headed its activities in Denmark. The aim is to prevent
vulnerable young people from being tricked into exploitation and trafficking through the Internet by means of
information campaigns targeted at minors in the four
countries.
In Denmark, we developed the material “It‟s Your
Safety!” in 2010 together with a group of unaccompanied refugee children living in a camp north of Copenhagen. It comprises a film and some teaching material
for use with very vulnerable children who arrive in Denmark without their family, focusing on danger signals to
watch out for on the Internet.
Since the material was prepared in cooperation with
underage unaccompanied asylum seekers, all of whom
spoke limited Danish or English, the visual aspect predominates both in the film and in the printed material.
“It‟s Your Safety” is based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It focuses specifically on the meaning
of the concept of exploitation, as well as on empowering children and young people to cope with situations in
which they are vulnerable to being used in some sense or another through the Internet. See www.itsyoursafety.net
STOP the sex trade in children and young people
- In cooperation with Bodyshop Denmark
In the summer of 2009, The Body Shop in cooperation with ECPAT launched the worldwide
campaign “STOP SEX Trafficking of Children and
Young People” by selling the hand lotion “Soft
Hands - Kind Hearts” in all their shops. The
profit goes to the struggle against the sex trade
in minors. In Denmark, Save the Children represents the organisation ECPAT (End Child Prostitution And Trafficking), and in August 2010, we
received a cheque for DKK 600,000 (about EUR
80,000) for the work. However, since it is fortunately rare for us in Denmark to come across
children and underage persons involved in the
sex trade, we decided to pass on the money to
three crisis centres for children in Bulgaria,
where a preventative effort is crucial to keep
these children – given their vulnerable situation –
from becoming future victims of the sex trade.
Until the summer of 2012, we intend to follow
the crisis centres‟ work with the children, which
will take the shape of psychosocial interventions
and medical treatment, but also excursions and
positive experiences, since this is important for
these children, who are often traumatised by
what they have gone through in their upbringing.
In parallel, The Body Shop is making a massive
effort to put the plight of these children on the
agenda all over the world.
9
Activities in Denmark
New national strategy and children‟s houses
As early as 2008, the Minister of Justice announced
that Denmark was embarking on the preparation of
a new national strategy against sexual abuse of children. It took the ministry until the spring of 2010 to
convene the first meetings about the strategy, and in
the course of the year, several plenary sessions have
been held with representatives of all ministries affected, and of organisations and institutions involved
in the issue.
The Danish Research Network on Sexual Abuse of
Children had previously drawn up a joint memorandum setting out how sexual abuse can be confronted
by setting up “children‟s houses” throughout Denmark.
Save the Children finds that a more interdisciplinary and
holistic approach is needed in how most Danish municipalities handle such cases. A nationwide network of
some 10-12 specialised and cross-sector centres or
“children‟s houses” to deal with cases of sexual abuse
and violence against children would secure both a high
professional level and stronger rule of law across the
country, so that children and their families can receive
the same support, help and treatment regardless of
where they live in Denmark. Save the Children wishes
this children‟s house approach to form part of the
government‟s upcoming national strategy.
“The Coach” in the schools
The film company Zentropa has produced a 30-minute
film entitled “The Coach” with attendant teaching aids.
The objective is to give information about and prevent
the sexual abuse of children and young people in Denmark. Save the Children has contributed expertise and
took part in launching the material, which has been
distributed to all Danish schools of basic education.
In April and May, a “Dialogue Trip” was made to 20
schools in 20 municipalities across the country. In the
schools selected, pupils from Years 7, 8 and 9 (aged 13-17
years) gathered in secure surroundings to watch the film
“The Coach”. They subsequently listened to a story by
director Lars K. Mikkelsen about the making of the film,
while consultant Jan Darfeld from Danish Sports Confederation or Kuno Sørensen from Save the Children talked
about how other children have survived assaults by adults.
Then an adult told his personal story about how he was
subjected to abuse as a child by his handball coach. At the
end, there would be a lively dialogue between the young
people and the professionals. Around 10,000 schoolchildren and their teachers had a most instructive experience.
LMSO - Danish Organisation against Sexual Abuse
Children subjected to sexual abuse also become adults at some stage. How much the injurious or traumatic experiences will hamper their self-realisation later on in life depends, among other factors, on the kind of help, support and
treatment the child and its next-of-kin have received early on. But even after growing up, former child victims of
abuse may be in need of such assistance. By establishing offers of treatment for adults who were subjected to sexual
abuse as children, the repercussions can be limited, for the benefit of the adult affected, his or her family, and society
as a whole.
Save the Children is active in the Danish Organisation against Sexual Abuse, including participation in its hearing regarding the personal, economic and social consequences of sexual abuse of children in Denmark. This event was held in
April at Christiansborg, building of the Danish parliament, and was attended by 145 politicians, civil servants and representatives of relevant organisations.
10
International cooperation
IGF international
As part of Save the Children‟s international work, in
2010, we took part in the international Internet Governance Forum (IGF) held in Vilnius, Lithuania. IGF
aims to gather stakeholders worldwide to discuss
matters of relevance to policies and guidelines for the
development of the Internet. The task of this body is
to facilitate a dialogue on the issues before policies
are defined.
It is important to turn the spotlight even more on
underage users, since they tend to jump into new
services without necessarily being sufficiently informed
about how the data that they pass on can be used or
abused.
The major issues which Save the Children helped to
highlight concerned the right to online privacy and
challenges regarding the proliferation of localisationbased services, such as Foursquare and Facebook‟s
Places, which enable constant tracking of a person‟s position and movement. Save the Children believes there is
a need for standard international rules regarding how
data on children and young people can be collected as
well as used, particularly for commercial purposes.
This makes it important for all the stakeholders to agree
on what a good practice is and to produce the required
information material for children and young people,
drawing their attention to the implications and risks before they click on “yes” to a service or product.
IGF makes it possible to raise this type of discussion with
relevant partners, which is why Save the Children gives
priority to attending it.
Interpols Specialist Group
For the first time, Save the Children took part in Interpol‟s specialist group to combat crime against children. This forum of experts, which also seeks to address online-related sexual abuse of children, convenes once a year to discuss the trends, as well as
possible solutions and cooperation platforms. The
exchange of experiences and gaining of insights in
global police cooperation is an important element of
our work. First and foremost it means that Save the
Children and our sister organisations in Europe are
now able to provide direct inputs to the discussions
that shape the global effort, as well as to be recognised
as confidence-inspiring and worthy actors in our field.
An important and innovative conference was held in
Holland in November regarding identification of victims
in pictures of sexual assault. Policemen, IT technical
experts, NGO representatives and politicians discussed
current challenges and solutions, but also found time to
try to predict how society would have to tackle the
sexual abuse of children in future. This debate was
interesting, since we are dealing with digital media
forms that are constantly pushing the boundaries, thus
testing our ways of coping with the issues. Moreover,
the criminals‟ mastery of technology makes it harder to
identify them, and hence also to reach potential victims
within close proximity of offenders.
New EU directive against sexual exploitation in the pipeline
In the spring of 2010, The European Commissioner
for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström, presented the
European Commission‟s proposal for a new and ambitious directive to combat child pornography and
sexual exploitation of children. The initiative contains
many measures which tighten the requirements for
the countries‟ protection of minors. One important
part of the proposal regards concerted efforts to
close down websites with child pornography. Since
2005, along with a handful of other countries Denmark has operated a scheme to block foreign sites
that cannot be easily closed down, maintained in cooperation between Danish internet providers and the
IT Investigation Centre of the National Police. This
has worked well and on a voluntary basis. The draft
directive suggests giving obligatory legal status to this
arrangement, so that all suppliers of Internet access,
whether by fixed line, wireless connection or mobile
network, must take part in the scheme to filter those
illegal pages outside the EU, whose authors cannot be
easily prosecuted due to reliance on the police and
courts in the country hosting the material. Save the
Children believes that this is an important proposal,
which will serve as one element in a wider array of
interventions aimed at impeding or stopping the proliferation of these pages. It will also help secure victims‟
belief in the rule of law and in a society that takes the
child‟s dignity seriously.
In addition, the draft directive suggests improvements
aimed at enabling member countries to request the
criminal record of persons from other parts of the EU
in connection with employment involving contact with
children. This can take place by setting up and exchanging between national databases which register people
convicted of sex crimes against children. Denmark already has such a database, but has yet to be able to
exchange this type of information with other EU countries.
Due to its opt-outs from EU justice and home affairs,
Denmark is not obliged to implement any final directive, but we call on the Danish parliament to take the
necessary measures for us to cooperate with fellow
member countries in the fight against sexual exploitation of children and child pornography. .
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Projects in 2011
Three free professional booklets about sexual abuse of children and young people
In the beginning of 2011, Save the
Children will publish three handbooks for professionals, which we
hope will become reference books
in most preschools, schools and
child-family administrative bodies
across the country. The publications can be ordered through Save
the Children Denmark‟s website
ww.redbarnet.dk
The right to myself
A joint project by the Danish Family Planning Association, Save the Children and Feldballe Film and TV concluded with the website
www.rettentilmig.dk (“the right to myself”). It contains an interactive
game where players follow various young people who are going to a party together. Throughout the game, various dilemmas have to be faced by making choices regarding the right to control one‟s own private life, body and
sexuality. In addition, there is an interview with young people about these issues, as well as references to relevant
websites. The project work was completed in 2010, and will be launched in March 2011. See www.rettentilmig.dk
Sikkerchat.dk will be launched in a new version
Save the Children
and the Crime
Prevention Council
will in the summer
2011 launch sikkerchat.dk in a new and
exciting version.
Follow the
www.sikkerchat.dk
Save the Children is the world‟s largest independent global organisation for children. Save the Children fights for children‟s rights.
We deliver immediate and lasting improvements to children‟s lives in Denmark and worldwide.
Red Barnet
Rosenørns Allé 12
DK-1634 Copenhagen V
www.redbarnet.dk
+45 35 36 55 55
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