In September 2024, The European Child Sexual Abuse Legislation Advocacy Group of which COFACE is member, organised a breakfast in Strasbourg to welcome newly elected MEPs and encourage them to use their position to fight the ongoing Child Sexual Abuse Crisis affecting millions of children across Europe.
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POLICY BRIEF. Supporting Families in the Digital Era: How to ensure safe and enriching online experiences for children and their Families?
EU policy-makers must ensure that all families are given support and guidance to access and navigate the digital environment in a meaningful way. This includes strong legal frameworks as well as strong and “low-threshold” evidence-based support and prevention measures for families. COFACE has produced a policy brief highlighting the importance of digital technologies for children and their families, and analysing whether existing and currently debated EU frameworks aimed at ensuring safe and empowering digital experiences for children integrate a families perspective.
Tulip Foundation publishes books on body awareness for children
For the past 7 years, Bulgarian COFACE member Tulip Foundation has been running its Sure Start programme. As part of this initiative, the foundation has funded and distributed several book series developed with the aim of preventing child sexual abuse by providing age-appropriate sexual health education for children at different ages with the involvement of their parents and/or trusted adults. Special attention is also paid to the risks online.
Study Seminar on child abuse in the digital world
The COFACE network will meet in Zagreb to study the Croatian Child Assault Prevention (CAP) Programme, co-hosted with Step by Step Parents Association. There will also be a working group on safer internet building connections with Insafe and INHOPE networks, discussing the work of COFACE members, and COFACE’s safer internet work in the future.
The fight against child sexual abuse receives new impetus with updated criminal law rules
In early February, the Commission adopted a proposal to update the criminal law rules on child sexual abuse and sexual exploitation. Child sexual abuse is a heinous crime which has evolved significantly over the past years.
OPINION – Europe, listen to survivors and stop abuse online
Content warning: this article includes material about child sexual abuse that some people might find confronting.
In the 17 seconds you have taken to read this far, footage or images of at least 34 children being abused have been uploaded onto the world wide web. 2 per second. This is the rate of appearance of the kind of material Apple is wilfully failing to detect.
Tech companies to comply with EU Digital Services Act for a safer online environment
In November 2022, the Digital Services Act (DSA), which introduces new rules for online service providers, came into force. It significantly improves the mechanisms for the removal of illegal content and for the effective protection of users’ fundamental rights online, including the freedom of speech. It also creates a stronger public oversight of online platforms, in particular for platforms that reach more than 10% of the EU’s population.
Open letter to urge support for the EU Regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse
With a recent open letter addressed to Members of the European Parliament and Representatives of Member States in the Council of the EU, leading experts from around the world, among which COFACE Director Elizabeth Gosme, urge support for the Commission’s proposal.
Eurobarometer survey on the protection of children against online sexual abuse
In July 2023, the European Commission released results of the latest Flash Eurobarometer survey on the protection of children against online sexual abuse.