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| [PHOTO: Bruce Tuten/Flickr/CC BY 2.0] |
Bangkok: Providing increased insight into and understanding of the
issue and scale of crimes against children across Southeast Asia was the focus
of an INTERPOL Specialists Group meeting in Bangkok this week.
Bringing together some 180 experts from law enforcement
bodies, non-governmental organizations, private sector organizations and
academia from 28 countries, the first INTERPOL Southeast Asia working party
meeting (19 – 21 March) covered a range of topics including victim
identification, Internet-facilitated crimes against children, child sex
offenders and violent crimes against children.
A key component of the three-day meeting was the provision
of access to the INTERPOL Victim Identification laboratory (ViLab) to
participants in order for them to assist efforts in identifying victims and
locations.
The ViLab is a mobile investigative tool that
allows trained users to view child sexual abuse images – which can be sanitized
depending on the audience – for ongoing and unsolved investigations.
A train-the-trainer session was held for officers from
Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, while information provided by delegates
at the Bangkok meeting has led to important intelligence being exchanged and
which will be used to move investigations forward.
The sharing of knowledge, experience and best practice,
supported by enhanced cooperation between criminal justice agencies within and
across borders, is recognized as vital in combating travelling child sex
offenders and protecting victims.
Organized by the INTERPOL Liaison Office in Bangkok in
cooperation with the Royal Thai Police, the meeting comes under the umbrella of
Project Childhood, an initiative to combat the sexual exploitation of children
– mainly in the travel and tourism sectors – in the Greater Mekong sub-region.
The project is funded by Australian AID (AusAID) and focuses on Cambodia, Laos,
Thailand and Vietnam, building on Australia's long-term support for programmes
that better protect children and prevent their abuse.
The project is being implemented in two complementary pillars:
the Protection Pillar, a partnership between UNODC and INTERPOL, and the
Prevention Pillar, implemented by World Vision.
Greater regional and international cooperation is key to
bringing an end to child exploitation, and INTERPOL is working to equip local
law enforcement with the tools and skills necessary for fighting this growing
type of crime. Related to that is the need for greater understanding of
the effect of the Internet and communication technologies. This issue was
addressed during presentations by some of the most technically experienced
officers from around the world. Project Childhood plans to offer training
opportunities to improve intelligence gathering and to improve the use of
INTERPOL’s tools including the International Child Sexual Exploitation (ICSE)
image database.