HOLY SEE IN CONGRESS AGAINST SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN

VATICAN CITY, DEC 22, 2001 (VIS) - The Second World Congress Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children was held in Yokohama, Japan, from December 17 to 20. Below are extracts of the speech given by Janne Haaland Matlary, representative of the Holy See Delegation.

"Sexual exploitation of children is a heinous crime. ... Both trafficking in women and children, sex tourism, and child pornography on the internet have increased enormously since the first conference on the commercial exploitation of children in Stockholm in 1996."

"The combination of poverty and weak family relations often explains why children are involved in 'sex tourism' or become the victims of trafficking. Poverty must and can be combatted through more development aid. Here both international organizations and local communities must have a say. The shameful sex tourism in many developing countries must be combatted on the supply side as well as on the demand side. The poor family in the developing world can and must be helped, and the clients-exploiters can and must be detected and punished effectively through international legal cooperation. Here, promising developments involving extra-territorial legality are important. Both sex tourism and internet child pornography are global phenomena, and must be combatted with truly global political weapons."

"The Holy See will do its part, according to its specific nature and competence, to combat the evil of commercial sexual abuse of children. ... We must look deeply in our own societies, confronting the lack of sound sexual behavior, the dominance of a consumerist culture that sees human beings as objects, and the licentiousness of some media which speculate in violence and sexual perversions."

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