On 16-17 May 2019, in Strasbourg, an international conference was held as part of the EndOCSEA@Europe project. OCSEA stands for online child sexual exploitation or abuse.
The purpose of this conference was to discuss the challenges and opportunities of having a better co-operation between professionals (lawyers, psychologists, teachers, etc.) in order to support the child-victim and provide safe convictions for perpetrators. Therefore representatives of various sectors were present.
Discussions were held on: the reasons why multi-sectoral co-operation is necessary (including the private sector); ways to protect children in the digital environment; experiences with and views on policies, procedures and strategies.
Member states identified the most urging problems and decided on working towards the following improvements:
- adequate training for specialised law enforcement,
- stronger collaboration between law enforcement and social services, and prosecutors and judges,
- more child-friendly procedures,
- awareness campaigns in co-operation with all stakeholders, addressing all levels of society.