Paris, 3 September - UNESCO will convene in the beginning of next year key non-governmental organizations, personalities, institutions and specialists in the fight against paedophilia, child pornography and child prostitution in the media and on the Internet, with the goal to formulate a common and global plan of action against these crimes.

This world-wide initiative follows UNESCO Director-General Federico Mayor's declaration of 20 July 1998 on the need for urgent action against the "unthinkable perversity" of paedophiles and the sexual and commercial exploitation of children and adolescents that he considers to be "crimes against humanity". On that occasion, Mr Mayor expressed support for an international observatory on abuses committed against children

The consultative meeting is to be held on 18 and 19 January 1999 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. The meeting will take into account already existing means - such as reports and Web sites maintained by groups defending children and fighting against pornography - and encourage these groups to work together within the framework of a well-structured network.

The meeting will be organized in cooperation with UNESCO's International Clearing House on Children and Violence on the Screen, located at the University of Göteborg in Sweden. Such organizations as the Movement Against Paedophilia on the Internet (MAPI) and associations recently created in Belgium and elsewhere, as well as specialised police units will notably be among those invited to the meeting.

For UNESCO - which already has published this year a Global Study on Media Violence and whose Info-Ethics programme explores the ethical, legal and societal aspects of new information technologies - the goal is to contribute to a global strategy for alerting opinion and action on the legal and political fronts against this scourge.

"The time has come for the international community to mobilise against the violence and perversity whose victims are our children. The information highway conveys the best and the worst. Child pornography and paedophilia are entrenched there: we must dislodge them. UNESCO works to uphold the free flow of ideas by word and image, and she always defends freedom of expression. But we must not tolerate that paedophilia, child pornography and child prostitution pervert these roads of freedom", Mr Mayor declared.