Talks focus against Internet kiddie sex

(TNA) - Child protection advocates from nine Asian countries are meeting in Bangkok for training on combatting child sex abuse in cyberspace.

Fifty-four child protection advocates including police officers, lawyers, judges and NGO workers from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam areattending an international workshop jointly organised by the British embassies in Cambodia and Thailand and software giant Microsoft Corporation.

The regional workshop is part of an ongoing commitment by the British Government to work with a wide range of partners to combat child sex abuse throughout the world, in connection with cyber paedophiles,according to the UK embassy in Bangkok.

The workshop is aimed to instruct participants about techniques used by paedophiles to target victims through the internet, and offer practical advice on how to combat this. In addition, the training also broadens international co-operation, and aid capacity building and information sharing within and between the countries of the region, said embassy officials.

Although children in some countries like Cambodia can't get access to the Internet, they are still vulnerable to be sexually abused. Paedophiles use the Internet to find locations to get easy access to children, according to Microsoft Asia Pacific executive Katherine Bostick.

They post photos of children abused by relatives and friends on the Internet and profit from selling them, she said.

Quoting a report from NBC's Dateline TV, Ms. Bostick said there are 50,000 child pornography predators online at present. "The internet connects children and paedophiles. There is no border, but it's a global problem," she said.

The training, held March 26-April 6 at the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in Bangkok, was designed and delivered by experts from the UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) in partnership with associate members from the Virtual Global Task Force (VGT).

VGT is an international alliance of law enforcement agencies from Australia, Canada, the UK and the US, working to protect children from sexual exploitation.