This morning marked the opening session of an international meeting on human trafficking law enforcement in Bangkok. The first Southeast Asia working party meeting of the INTERPOL Specialists Group on Crimes Against Children kicked off at Bangkok’s Dusit Thani hotel, bringing together law enforcement professionals from across Europe and Asia to discuss human trafficking and child exploitation in the region.
In opening statements to the delegates, speakers emphasized the international nature of crimes against children and the need for cross-border cooperation in order to combat the phenomenon.
UN specialist on the sale of children and child pornography Ms. Najat Mjid, addressing the delegation with a pre-recorded speech, emphasized that recent advances in information-sharing technology had made it easier than ever for predators to exploit children and pass child pornography between countries without detection.
She said that loose rules governing Internet Service Providers’ obligations to report child pornography had allowed pornographers to pass this material easily through the internet, while impediments to cooperation between international law enforcement agencies made crimes against children difficult to prosecute.
These sentiments were echoed from others of the meeting’s attendants, including Pol. Gen. Chatchawal Suksomjit of the Royal Thai Police and Mr. Michael Moran – an INTERPOL expert on tracking crimes against children online.
For the next two days, delegates at the meeting will work on forging cooperation between regional police forces and training law enforcement officers to identify and track crimes against children.
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