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Informal Council of Ministers for Home Affairs

Prague, 15 January 2009

International Protection of Children

International protection of children - recent development and current
situation 

International protection of children is one of the key priorities of the
Czech Republic in the area of Justice and Home Affairs and it is
directly related to the motto of the Czech Presidency „Open and Secure
Europe”. With wide opportunities to travel and almost unlimited access
to the Internet and other communication technologies which may be abused
to commit crimes against minors, international protection of children
remains 

a world-wide issue. 

The much awaited openness of the Schengen Area we have enjoyed shall
come hand in hand with the latter part of the motto – security.
Protection of children shall be further improved in the light of the
increasing number of cases of kidnapped children, which often happen
across the border. So far, such cases have been investigated at the
national level but, as shown by the debate on early warning systems to
help solve cases of child abductions carried under the French
Presidency, protection of children requires more of the Europe-wide
attention. 

The Czech Presidency strives to build on the achievements which have
been already reached in this area and which are reflected in numerous
documents of the Council, 

the European Commission and the European Parliament. The Czech
Presidency appeals to all the Member States to remain focused on the
issue of international protection of children and to concentrate on
several points of view - improved use of police cooperation mechanisms
and illegal on-line content as well as early warning systems to help
find abducted children. 

Police cooperation

To help increase protection of children, the Czech Presidency tends to
further improve the use of currently available instruments of police
cooperation, especially in the field of searching for missing and
abducted children, strengthening protection of children against criminal
offenders and against illegal on-line content. 

Improvement in using the Schengen Information System in searching for
missing children

The Czech Presidency activities to improve security of children will
therefore focus on improved cooperation in the field of searching for
missing children with the goal to adopt a recommendation on future
activities of SIRENE Bureaux and the use of SIS, including the
interaction with the national early warning systems. 

To reach this goal, the Czech Presidency proposes the following:

- recommendation for the immediate launch of the search for missing
children into SIS, recommendation or guidelines to guide cases of
international abductions of children based on the search for the missing
child as well as the potential kidnapper; 

- exchange of information on how individual countries launch their
search for missing children followed by the recommendation of best
practice;

- recommendation to pay increased attention to children in checks on the
territory of the Member States as well as prudent broader controls of
all children leaving the Schengen Area. Therefore it is necessary to
make sure that the external border remains a real border and a
significant barrier to any abduction attempts. 

	

Fight against illegal on-line content  

World-wide, the EU has been a significant promoter of safer Internet,
especially for children. The Commission had introduced its first
policies in this field back in 1996 and followed them up with two
programmes: Action Plan for Safer Internet (1999–2004) 

a Safer Internet plus (2005–2008). 

The Czech Presidency welcomes the fact that the new multi-annual
European Community program to protect children using the Internet and
other communication technologies (hereinafter only Safer Internet) has
just been launched. 

Besides the activities of the Commission, the Czech Presidency would
like to discuss further deepening of police cooperation against illegal
on-line content. 

In this context, the Czech Presidency will, on 20 April 2009, in
cooperation with the European Commission, host a ministerial conference
"Safer Internet for Children – Together Against Illegal Content“,
which will focus especially on international police cooperation and the
capacity of the law enforcement services to combat illegal on-line
content. In reaction to the growing violence at schools, where new
technologies, communications and entertainment (especially computer
games and cell phones) play an important role, the Czech Presidency
proposes to debate issues such as cyberbullying. The Czech Presidency
appeals to the Member States to opt for a coordinated approach to the
issue of illegal on-line content. The Czech Republic promotes
cooperation of all relevant players and concludes that child protection
is exactly the area where international cooperation going beyond the EU
borders is much needed.

Where do you see an opportunity to improve coordinated approach of the
European Union in the fight against illegal on-line content?

Early warning systems in cases of child abduction

International protection of children may be approached from several
angles, one of which is the continuous discussion of the European
protection of missing children, which had been debated already at the
Informal Justice and Home Affairs Council under the Portuguese
Presidency where the Ministers stressed the need of efficient networking
of national warning systems. The French Presidency has continued in this
discussion and initiated a text of the Council Conclusions in which it
calls on the Member States to introduce early warning systems in cases
of child abduction at the national level and to build on - in the
process of launching such systems – a Commission staff working
document “Best practice for launching a cross-border child abduction
alert”..

Only a few Member States have launched their early warning systems to
help find abducted children. The activation of such emergency systems,
in case of a cross-border abduction, simultaneously in a number of
countries requires that all Member States have their national systems in
place. In this context, the Czech Presidency will mainly aim to analyse
the current situation in the Member States. First, the Czech Republic
wants to determine whether all Member States have set their early
warning systems to help find abducted children and, secondly, how these
systems work. To follow up, the Czech Republic plans to trigger best
practice sharing in order to help those Member States which have not yet
introduced such systems, collect information and get inspired by foreign
experience and expertise. Exchange of information among the Member
States on properties of the national systems and sharing of expertise
seem to be one of the key conditions for the future interconnection of
the systems. In order to strengthen the exchange of information among
the Member States, the Czech Presidency would like to perform a
simulation exercise.

It is recommended that the early warning systems in individual Member
States operate on the same concept and be compatible to allow for
cooperation in practice. The question of the use of identical criteria
to activate the emergency systems, i.e. to enter the missing child in
the systems, remains a related issue.

The Czech Presidency will host an expert conference on Best practice in
the use of early warning systems to help find abducted children focused
on the exchange of best practices in the field of implementing and
operating national early warning systems. The conference offers itself
as a relevant platform for practical discussions of the Member States on
their approach and challenges they may be facing. The conference will
also present results of simulation exercises amongst the Member States.
The Council will be duly informed on the Conference conclusions. 

Would you support the idea to organize a simulation exercise and would
your country take part in such exercise?

To facilitate Europe-wide exchange of information with the functioning
of the national early warning systems, the Czech Republic proposes to
launch a European web site to circulate information on all early warning
systems operated throughout Member States and to allow for updating as
new national mechanisms appear. This page may also include information
for the public on missing children in the Member States together with
Member States’ contact points that may be contacted in order to help
with investigation. It may also include information on individual Member
States activities in this particular field (conferences, international
seminars, invitations, awareness campaigns, etc.). The website
administrator may regularly inform the Member States on various related
activities (e.g. in a form of a newsletter). 

Do you think that launching of the web site could bring a value to the
investigation of missing children and exchange of information on early
warning systems? Who should be administrating the web page?

The added value of the early warning systems is in their capacity to
involve the public in the search for a missing child. The Czech
Presidency proposes to make the issue of missing children more visible
with the help of national awareness campaigns focused on active
cooperation of the public with all the stakeholders involved (police,
media, NGOs, volunteers, etc).

 Doc. 15084/08 CRIMORG 177 CATS 87 SEC(2008) 2754 final.

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