Child Exploitation & Abuse

This meeting will take place in the House of Lords. Entrance for this is the main St Stephen's Entrance to the Houses of Parliament. When you arrive you will have to go through security so can you please arrive early so that you can get through in time. You will be directed to the Committee Corridor of the House of Lords (which is accessed through the Central Lobby) and the meeting takes place in Committee Room 3.

An estimated 300 million children worldwide are subjected to violence, exploitation and abuse including the worst forms of child labour in communities, schools and institutions; Children worldwide are being abused, exploited and trafficked. Often companies in the UK have sold goods produced by child labour. UNICEF has called upon the world to take action and protect children abused through commercial sexual exploitation, trafficking and child labour. We have some excellent speakers who have campaigned on this as well as some striking video material.

Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP is a London's Euro-MP and a life peer in the House of Lords. She is spokeswoman for the British Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament on the Civil Liberties, Justice & Home Affairs committee and Vice-Chairwoman of the European Parliament's Human Rights Sub-Committee. She has said “"The trafficking of people, mainly though not exclusively women and children, is an appalling crime, with estimates of two million children annually being trafficked into forced labour and sex slavery."

Tahirih Danesh is a Human Rights Researcher and Documenter specializing in the case of minorities in Iran. She is an independent consultant dedicated to in-depth investigation, research and documentation, analysis and reporting of human rights abuses in Iran; focusing on allegations of serious violations of human rights and international criminal law against minorities based on religion, ethnicity, gender or age. She will speak on the topic of child executions.

Catherine Turner is the Child Labour Coordinator Anti-Slavery International. Anti-Slavery International, founded in 1839, is the world's oldest international human rights organisation and the only charity in the United Kingdom to work exclusively against slavery and related abuses. Although slavery has been abolished Anti Slavery International argues that in many cases laws are not enforced. Even in Europe and North America, where slavery appeared to have been consigned to history, it has returned in the form of human trafficking and forced labour

Dragan Nastic is the Parliamentary Officer for UNICEF which has a campaign to end child trafficking though raising public awareness regarding child trafficking and exploitation, by raising funds to support practical programmes which protect children from trafficking and works to end child exploitation and to call for the protection and support of trafficked children and the strengthening of UK policy and practice.

Paul Massey. Just as poverty and deprivation has become a tool for recruiting children for exploitation in the developing world so the Internet has become a major source for the recruitment of children in the developed Paul Massey is a lawyer and has worked with clients who have seen children groomed on the net for exploitation both sexually and economically. He can tell of his own experience and what we can all do to stop this practice and what else needs to be done.