Debate during the plenary session of February in Strasbourg on the fight against child sexual abuse on the Internet. Statements by Christos STYLIANIDES, Member of the EC in charge of Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Birgit SIPPEL (S&D, DE), Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR, UK), Nathalie GRIESBECK (ALDE, FR) and Martina ANDERSON (GUE/NGL, UK).

Fight against child sexual abuse on the Internet: extracts from the debate

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SOUNDBITE (English), Christos STYLIANIDES, Member of the EC in charge of Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, "First ensure that all countries continue to pursue the policy targets by mutual inspiration and pooling resources. Second it should reach out to more countries. Third the Alliance should react to the trends and threats that we see in the real world and to adapt the response to them. We must also work more closely with the internet industry that is ready to play a role within the Global Alliance."

SOUNDBITE (English), Christos STYLIANIDES, Member of the EC in charge of Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, "The Commission will continue to support law enforcement in a more efficient identification of victims and perpetrators by co-funding the development of shared data bases, currently hosted in INTERPOL, giving law enforcement better access to data and evidence worldwide."

SOUNDBITE (German), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), "Recently we have seen an explosion of these acts, an explosion of the number of the abused children. The internet might be a blessing for many areas, we create jobs, but it is curse for those who are the victims of crimes."

SOUNDBITE (German), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), "Now it is important that there is sufficient human resources to be able to combat this form of crime, but unfortunately we only got 3 people for the whole of Europe. And of course Europol has more staff, but they are dealing with Human Trafficking, organised crime and all sorts of different forms of crimes and that is my first plea, we need sufficient resources to be able to combat this crime. Secondly the implementation of the directive has to be better up in the member states and all member states have to implement the 2011 directive."

SOUNDBITE (German), Birgit SIPPEL (S&amp;D, DE), "These kind of contents can be blocked but it is only a transitional issue, what we need to do for the victims sake is to eliminate the content and private provides shouldn't be left alone to decide on this."

SOUNDBITE (German), Birgit SIPPEL (S&amp;D, DE), "There one point we must not forget, abuse is not virtual it happens in the real world and is shocking how the problem is seen and tackled in different ways in the member states. In some cases it is even ignored."

SOUNDBITE (English), Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR, UK), "When we ask ourselves what needs to be stop the abuse it is quite simple: everything humanly possible, we need to work together internet companies and providers, social media, schools, parents, communities and police authorities. We need to block search results that lead to child abuse, we need to identify illegal images and take them down, we need to capture and prosecute perpetrators and provide justice for victims and give ourselves the tools to do so. Then we need to offer victims the necessary help to feel safe again. There are too many dark corners of the internet and the most terrible crimes are committed there."

SOUNDBITE (French), Nathalie GRIESBECK (ALDE, FR), "Statistics on children: 4 million pieces of pornographic material are actually on the internet now. Victims are younger and younger, 10% of children under the age of 2 in fact, more and more violent images, networks with terrible sophisticated encrypted systems and so on... just a few weeks ago, from my part at least, I was starting to try to understand what was happening on the dark web and learned more about. These awful sordid worlds that are so dangerous, 'Tor' and 'Freenet' are actually completely infiltrated by paedophiles and we cannot just remain inactive now, we have to do something. One report showed that just in 2014 there has been an increase of 100% of paedophile pornographic content of being flagged up, this content on the internet is now on the rise worryingly than ever."

SOUNDBITE (English), Martina ANDERSON (GUE/NGL, UK), "Children are carrying around smart phones in their pockets and very few are aware of the risks associated with them. We need to explore the use and the danger of new media so that children take precautions."

Fight against child sexual abuse on the Internet: extracts from the debate

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