Brussels seeks to block child porn websites

(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission is seeking to block access to child pornography Internet websites, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem announced Monday.

"Child pornography means images of children suffering sex abuse. Downloading or viewing child pornography on the Internet leads to more children being raped to produce those images," Malmstroem said.

"The response of the EU cannot be too clear or too resolute. Whatever the EU can possibly do against that, the EU must do and will do," she told a press conference in Brussels.

The commissioner was unveiling proposals for new European laws on the sexual exploitation of children, including plans for national authorities to block access to child pornography sites, most of which are based outside Europe's borders.

The proposals must be examined by ministers in the 27 European Union nations as well as by the European parliament.

"Child pornography has nothing to do with the freedom of expression. It is a horrible crime," Malmstroem stressed.

"If we don't act, Internet users may eventually come to consider such images as normal," she added.

She assured that website-blocking would not be used for any other reasons.

The proposals would criminalise "new forms of sexual abuse and exploitation facilitated by the use of the Internet," such as adults grooming children on-line for sexual abuse or the viewing of child pornography without downloading the incriminating files.

"Sex tourism" is also targeted by the planned law changes under which someone from the EU who abuses a child while abroad could face prosecution on return home.

Spanish police announced Monday that 32 people were questioned and nine others charged in recent days for allegedly distributing child pornography on the Internet after raids in 17 provinces.

Malmstroem also presented a new directive for tackling human trafficking, proposing a harmonisation of national legislation.

"In the 21st century, we should not have women and girls reduced to sexual slavery, children beaten and mistreated, forced to beg and to steal and young adults compelled to work in appalling conditions for hunger wages," she said.

"These crimes are not acceptable under any circumstances. We must do everything possible to stop the people responsible for these acts," the former Swedish minister said.

The proposals include, as with the child pornography ones, prosecuting offenders even when their crimes were committed outside the EU.

It also spreads the judicial net by calling for sanctions against anyone knowingly employing or "buying services" from victims of trafficking.

According to the International Labour Organisation, at least 2.45 million people are in forced labour as a result of human trafficking.

Most victims of trafficking -- overwhelmingly women and girls -- are exploited for prostitution (43 percent) or for menial labour (32 percent), it says.

Several hundred thousand people are estimated to be trafficked into or within the EU every year.

Proposal for a Directive on combating sexual abuse, 
sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, 
repealing Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA