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Return to Sender. British Child Sex Offenders Abroad-Why More Must be Done

Document number
1751
Date
2008
Title
Return to Sender. British Child Sex Offenders Abroad-Why More Must be Done
Author/publisher
Christine Beddoe, End Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (ECPAT) UK
Availability
View/save PDF version of this document
Document type(s)
Research/Study/Analysis,
Keywords
Prevention, Information campaign, Protection, Victims of trafficking, Trafficked persons, Child trafficking, Sex tourism, Pornography, Sexual exploitation, Palermo protocol; Anti-trafficking measures; Crime prevention; Child trafficking; Best Interests Principle, Child Victims of Trafficking, Separated Migrant Children, Unaccompanied minors, Family reunification, Guardian, Family Tracing, Age Assessment, Freedom from Detention, Interim Care, Health, Education, Training, Integration, Adoption,
Summary
In August 2006 ECPAT UK published a landmark report called 'The End of The Line for Child Exploitation' which exposed gaps in UK legislation and policy on the sexual abuse of children by British nationals who travel abroad. Now, in 2008, it revisits some of these issues to see whether children are any safer today than they were two years ago. As this report will show, the UK law enforcement response to child sex tourism falls well short of our expectations. Britain has an excellent international reputation for its robust approach to child protection but when we turn our eyes to the abuse of children by British nationals who travel abroad the story is quite different and the UK compares poorly against other countries with similar legal frameworks such as Australia and the United States. In this report ECPAT UK is calling on the government to immediately review its strategy to prevent, detect and manage British nationals who abuse children abroad. Central to this is to reverse the ideology that if abuse happens overseas then we should simply let the governments ‘over there’ deal with it. This now very tired mantra must be challenged.
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