Statement by ECPAT International

【2015/23/Sep】

WORLD LEADERS COMMIT TO END SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN THROUGH PROSTITUTION AND PORNOGRAPHY

Today, Heads of State gathered for the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in New York unveil the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and set in motion the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

In doing so, world leaders make the highest possible commitment to protect children when they are the most vulnerable. This SDGs include the promise to ‘take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour (…) by 2025’ (SDG target 8.7). According to the International Labour Organisation’s Convention No 182, the worst forms of child labour include the sale and trafficking of children, as well as the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution or the production of pornography.

ECPAT International welcomes the commitment of Heads of States as a victory for children everywhere. “Today must be the start of an era of determination and action if we are to realise the eradication the commercial sexual exploitation of children through prostitution and pornography by 2025” said Dorothy Rozga, Executive Director of ECPAT International.

ECPAT celebrates this breakthrough, which it has been tirelessly trying to secure during three World Congresses Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children for the last 20 years.

For more information, please visit www.ecpat.net