In struggle against pedophilia on the Internet
the MAPI project
Cette page est aussi disponible en
français
The MAPI report is now available in English.
Thank you to Nils Hedenstr°m for the translation
and to Peter Kelly for the proofreading.
You can read it "On-line",
or you can dowload it from this page. |
Contents
What is MAPI?
MAPI - Movement Against Pedophilia on the Internet - is a volunteer organisation
of professors and researchers from the Computer
Science Department and from CITA
(Cellule Interfacultaire de Technology Assessment) of the University
of Namur (Belgium).
MAPI has four aims:
- Study the problem of the pedophile market and of the diffusion on Internet
of information encouraging sexual exploitation of children;
- Inform Internet users and raise their awareness level about the problems
linked to the diffusion of such information;
- Lead a legal, technical and ethical research on existing solutions
to restrict this diffusion of information;
- Develop various recommendations for those who provide access and sites
for Web pages, for those who use newsgroups to spread information of a
pedophile nature, as well as for the political and legal arenas.
The aim is certainly not to censor Internet but to protect children.
MAPI's goal is neither to make an inventory of all existing sites and newsgroups
encouraging sexual exploitation of children nor to denounce these sites.
MAPI only wants to remind Internet users of their responsibility in the
network management.
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What is meant by "information of a pedophile nature"?
The targeted information concern all materials that encourage the sexual
exploitation of children. It could be child pornography, texts and discussions
inciting to pedophilia, etc.
These information demean the rights of children as clearly defined by
the article 34 of the International
Convention of the Rights of Children.
Article 34. States Parties
undertake to protect the child from all forms of sexual exploitation and
sexual abuse. For these purposes, States Parties shall in particular take
all appropriate national, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent:
- The inducement or coercion of a child to engage in
any unlawful sexual activity;
- The exploitative use of children in prostitution or
other unlawful sexual practices;
- The exploitative use of children in pornographic performances
and materials.
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How to support our initiative?
If you want to support this initiative, you can put our
logo on your personal WWW page by including the command <a
href="http://www.info.fundp.ac.be/~mapi/mapi-eng.html" ><IMG
SRC="http://www.info.fundp.ac.be/~mapi/mapi.gif" ></a>
in its HTML source ; replace 'mapi.gif' with 'mapi2.gif' in order to
display a smaller picture.
By displaying this picture, you are showing your commitment to:
- never participate in the spreading of information of a pedophile nature
on the Internet, whatever the communication method used;
- fight busily against the spread and the use of pedophile information
on the Net:
- alert specialized
contact points as soon as such information is detected on the network;
- make your friends and colleagues aware of the dangers of pedophile
information on the Net;
- inform the political and legal world as well as the Internet access
providers about these dangers;
- recommend other people to put this logo on their WWW page.
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How to participate?
At the present time, MAPI is leading research on the technical and legal
aspects of the presence of child pornography on the Internet. MAPI's final
objective is the diffusion, at the beginning of December, maybe via a conference
open to a wide public, of research results together with recommendations
for Belgian politicians and access providers.
If you want to take part in this effort, we suggest the following:
- put
the MAPI logo on your Web page with a link to this page;
- send us relevant information about the problem that you want us to
put on this web page;
- help us concretely in a few weeks to organise the conference and the
diffusion of our results. Let us know your name and address and we will
contact you at the end of November.
We already thank you for your interest and support of this movement.
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You find information of a pedophile nature... What can you
do?
If, while surfing on the Net, you find information that encourages the
sexual exploitation of children and that it disturbs you, here are a few
solutions:
In Belgium
- send an e-mail to Kinderporno
Meldpunt (Gent-Gand). This Meldpunt (Recording Point) has
been set up by volunteers, Net users or professionals, who want to reinforce
the Internet auto-censorship mechanism (Netiquette). By locating information
related to child pornography on the Net, they also want to give a better
image of this powerful medium. This Recording Point is advised by a committee
of Flemish university teachers. Information available on the web
pages, unfortunately only in Dutch for the moment, is extremely relevant
and complete: project and procedure description, extracts of Belgian law
concerning child pornography, ...
- call the Computer Crime Unit of the Brussels Police (+32 2 508 71 11).
- call the Délégué
Général aux Droits de l'Enfant, Claude Lelièvre.
Abroad
- contact existing Recording Points like the Flemish Meldpunt
in your region or country;
- contact the judicial authorities of your region or country that may
have set up a specialised crime unit for this kind of information;
- contact U.S. Customs
Child Pornography & Protection Unit (Report child pornography!);
- report the existence of such sites to Save
the Children Association;
- contact ECPAT International, a
global network of Asian and non Asian organisations working together for
the elimination of child prostitution, child pornography and the traffic
of children for sexual purposes which may know of existing information
centers in your region or country
- ECPAT International 328 Phaya Thai
Road Bangkok 10400 Thailand
Tél. (66) 2 215 33 88 Fax. (66)
2 215 82 72 E-mail: info@ecpat.net
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To learn more about ...
- In August 1996, the First
World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children took
place in Stockholm. The conference has led to several suggestions on the
topic:
- point out these sites to the association Save
the Children;
- remind the managers of those servers of their moral responsibilities;
- cause the distributors of credit cards to be more watchful;
- entrust an international institution with the responsibility of creating
a cyber police continuously present on the network to surround and dissuade
pedophiles and their providers.
(Le Monde, 1-2 septembre 1996)
- Redd Barna
(Save the Children Norway) in co-operation with the Norwegian Ombudsman
for Children, Trond Waage, presented an initiative to fight child pornography
on the Net at the first World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation
of Children.
- ECPAT - End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism
ECPAT is a global
network of Asian and non Asian organisations working together for the elimination
of child prostitution, child pornography and the traffic of children for
sexual purposes. ECPAT has been one of the initiator of the first world
congress against commercial sexual exploitation of children in Stokholm
in August 1996. In Belgium, ECPAT was established in 1994 as a coalition
of 30 organisations working on the topic. These members are divided in
different commissions: legal aspects, tourism, prevention at school, ...
Since March 96, ECPAT Belgium works with part-time staff and diffuses 4
times a year an information letter in French and Dutch which can be obtained
at the following address: ECPAT - Belgium Katlijn
Declercq Rue du Gouvernement Provisoire, 32
1000 - Bruxelles Tél. 32 2 219
19 93 Fax. 32 2 217 32 59
- The Netomium Forum "De quoi je me mèle?" (None
of your business)
- Some weeks ago, two Belgian ministers (Elio di Rupo and Stefaan De
Clerck) have set up expert groups on the problem of pedophilia on the Net.
Netomium, a French speaking Belgian web site, proposed a discussion
forum, mostly in French, on this topic.
- The Web site of the Kinderporno
Meldpunt in Gent-Gand (Belgium), set up by volunteers, Net users
or professionals, who want to reinforce the Internet auto-censorship mechanism
and which propose general information on the topic and procedures to follow
if you want to denounce existing sites or newsgroups wich encourage sexual
exploitation of children. Information is only available in Dutch for the
moment.
- A French Web
site which summarizes the arguments of the manager of the most important
French Internet access provider who was accused of having pedophile pictures
on his server (This is an example of arguments for not changing the existing
situation).
- The National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children of Washington (Arlington)
- The site of the Belgian association Marc
& Corine which uses Internet to diffuse pictures and information
on missing children
- Two sites of general information on sexual child abuse: Child
Sexual Abuse and Stop It Now !
- Still on the same topic, a four languages (German, English, Dutch and
French) site on child
protection with many links to other information sources and especially
to important telephone
numbers in Belgium
- The complete text of the International
Convention of the Rights of Children.
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This page has been accessed 
times since September 10, 1996 - Last updated : October 22, 1996. For any
problems with this WWW service, please contact : www@info.fundp.ac.be
(c) Xavier
Gobert, Claire Lobet, Béatrice van Bastelaer and
Denis Zampuniéris