PRESS RELEASE : UN Human Rights Council 55 – UK Statement on the sale of children [March 2024]
The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 5 March 2024.
UK Statement for the Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and any other child sexual abuse material.
Thank you, Mr Vice-President,
We thank the Special Rapporteur for her recent report and continued work on this important issue.
We are committed to preventing the worst forms of child labour, including child sexual exploitation and abuse online and within at-risk communities around the world.
In the UK, we are prioritising making it the safest place for children to be online with our Online Safety Act legislation. The Act puts the strongest protections in place for children and places clear legal duties on platforms to report, remove and limit child sexual abuse material on platforms – including in end-to-end encrypted environments.
We also support an Action-Research-Innovation programme in South and South-Eastern Asia, “CLARISSA”, which has increased knowledge on the worst forms of child labour in the adult entertainment sector. Through innovative participatory research, this programme has shown the value of engaging both children and business owners to better understand the sector’s complexity. This, in turn, supports interventions that address children’s rights violations and successfully reduce child exploitation.
Special Rapporteur, how can states foster better international coordination to reduce child sexual exploitation and abuse across all sectors?
