Potential Risks Connected with the Internet and Chatrooms

Activities

Source:

• Case Management

• Call Management

- Calls

- Childpornography on the Internet

- Potential risks connected with the Internet and chatrooms

• Network

- Volunteers

- Structured partners

• International operations

- Operational interventions at international level

- European Federation for Missing and Sexually Exploited Children

- International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC)

- DAPHNE project

Case Management

The team consists of a team leader who is a legal expert, a psychologist, a criminologist, a graduate in political science and two social workers.

Cases of disappearances (less worrying cases of runaways, worrying cases of runaways, abductions by third persons and undefined disappearances) are dealt with by all the case managers. With a view to maximum efficiency, it was decided to introduce a certain specialisation for handling particular types of cases, namely cases of parental abductions, sexual exploitation, non-organised sexual abuse and disappearances of unaccompanied minors. Each speciality is assigned to two case managers who can put more of their time into it and acquire greater experience in the field, whilst continuing to deal with other cases. In fact, all the case managers are required to perform some duties at night and at weekends, when they may be confronted with all types of cases.

The case manager has a dual responsibility in handling the different files : on the one hand, he has an important role to play vis-à-vis parents and victims and, on the other hand, his task is to stimulate the investigation and the legal proceedings. In carrying out his tasks, the case manager always acts with the child's interests in mind.

The case manager is responsible for the first contact with the parents and/or victims. This first meeting with those concerned, during which the case manager listens first of all to their story, takes place within the first few hours after the call and is of crucial importance in establishing a relationship of trust. The case manager will then remain regularly in contact with those involved until the conclusion of the case, even when it goes on for a long time and other services and institutions lose sight of the victims.

If, during the course of the meetings, it appears that the parents and/or victims need psychological support or practical assistance, they are put in contact with existing official victim-support services and specialised associations. The case manager ensures that these services deal with the people concerned in an appropriate manner.

During the regular interviews that he holds with those involved, the case manager informs them and gives his opinion on the development of the judicial enquiry and the measures that must be taken. If the victims have questions specifically concerning the legal procedures, they are directed to the victim-reception services of the public prosecutor's department.

The case manager also actively supports the investigations into cases of missing or sexually exploited children. For this, he regularly contacts the police department concerned and the magistrate in charge of the case, so as to follow the investigation until the case is finalised. This is all done within the limits of professional secrecy by which the case manager is bound.

The case manager always ensures, although without replacing the existing services, that everything is done for the case to be resolved as quickly as possible and for the primary and secondary victims to receive the best possible support. He can therefore benefit from the privileged position of Child Focus vis-à-vis the judicial authorities and police departments, as defined in an agreement with them. The case manager will initiate all the action that he can vis-à-vis the authorities concerned and personally take care of its coordination and implementation.

Finally, the case manager passes on all information brought to his attention by those concerned and/or third parties to the magistrate in charge of the investigation and the police department handling the case. This applies not only to new factors communicated to the Centre but also to anonymous evidence concerning disappearances and cases of sexual exploitation.

Call Management

Since 2001, the responsibilities of our call managers have no longer been limited to dealing with calls and other sources of requests for information or intervention (110, fax, mail, e-mail, visits to the Centre, etc.). They also handle less worrying files on runaways during the first 48 hours. Similarly, calls from child victims are now managed by this team, which consists of a team leader who is a social worker, 2 criminologists, 5 psychologists, an assistant psychologist, a social worker and a child orthopedagogist.

1. Calls

Due to the fact that, in accordance with the law on the protection of private life, a message has been placed on the 110 number warning callers that their telephone number has been identified and their communication is being recorded, every call, even if the caller hangs up after hearing the warning, is automatically intercepted by the computer and held until a call manager has picked it up. If the call manager is already taking a call, the following calls are put on hold. It is therefore no longer possible to determine the difference between a conversation lasting a few minutes or a call kept on hold for the same number of minutes.

Consequently, the only objective indicator is the total number of calls received. On this basis, a decrease of 20% can be observed in 2002 (189,319 in 2002 as opposed to 236,061 in 2001). 90.7% of calls are made between 07.00 and 23.00, with the remaining 9.3% between 23.00 and 07.00.

The decrease concerns calls of less than 90 seconds, i.e. less useful or mistaken calls. Calls of between 1 minute 30 seconds and 5 minutes, more serious calls, were up (20,832 compared to 17,102 in 2001).

Since mid-June 1999, an all-night service has been provided free of charge by Eurocross, the emergency switchboard of the mutual societies. The staff have received training in the matters dealt with by the Centre and the procedure to be followed to key in the information. Apart from a manual indicating the way in which to transmit the information to the authorities or the Child Focus case management, operators also benefit from personal assistance during their first turns on duty. This ongoing support and the availability of the Eurocross teams guarantee the operational quality of this all-night service.

From the point of view of the operational mission of Child Focus, the call managers handled in 2001 :

- 269 cases of runaways (not of a worrying nature and lasting less than 48 hours)

- 3002 reports from witnesses connected with the cases processed : 11.53% of these reports follow public actions organised by the Centre or in which the Centre is involved (posters, fliers, short notices via the media and national and/or regional television reports) and consist of information provided by third parties concerning the location of missing children. During 2002, the Federal Police put out 47 short notices via the media with which the 110 number was associated. These brought 135 reports of witnesses passed on to the authorities by Child Focus.

88.47% were spontaneous reports from third parties but having a link with a file (police officers, teachers, members of the family of the missing child, etc.), providing additional information on the file (new significant factors, voluntary workers sending in information on the completion of a poster campaign, the return of the child, difficulties experienced following the disappearance, etc.).

77 reports concern disappearances that have not been handled by the Centre (disappearances of adults, enquiries from abroad).

During the second half of 2002, 2,378 sites involving pornography were reported via the site

Not all the reports received are the subject of a letter to the public prosecutor's office. Most of the time, the call managers ask the caller to pass on the facts reported to the police or a competent service. This procedure has been introduced

to avoid anonymous slanderous denunciations via the 110 number as much as possible. Some reports are intended directly for the case managers in charge of the file concerned. The latter transmit the information received to the police officers dealing with the file.

All calls in which mention is made of a situation that could place a child in danger are systematically passed on to the public prosecutor's office or are checked to determine whether the information should be communicated to a competent association.

Within the context of the societal mission of Child Focus, the call managers handled several thousand calls in 2001 relating to sexual ill-treatment within the family (incest) and outside the family (rape, indecent assault, prostitution, pornography on the Internet, etc.), physical ill-treatment, divorce, failure to respect custody arrangements by one of the parents, disappearances of adults, sects, suicide, drugs, etc.

The fact that the emergency line is accessible 24 hours a day and certain free numbers at other institutions are saturated means a proliferation of calls which call managers have to listen to and direct callers to the competent services .

Finally, an increase has been observed in requests for assistance from abroad, particularly via the Internet. The work involved in directing these requests to competent services in the countries concerned is substantial.

2. Childpornography on the Internet

After two years of experience in dealing with reports of child pornography on the Internet and meetings with all the players concerned, Child Focus took the initiative - with the support of the European Commission within the framework of its Safer Internet Action Plan - to open a national civil contact point in June 2002. The content of any site suspected of involving child pornography can be reported through this contact point.

Within the context of its mission of taking action to combat the sexual exploitation of children, and being confronted more and more with the growth of child pornography on the Internet, Child Focus has created the site in collaboration with MAPI (Movement Against Pedophilia on Internet), the Trafficking in Human Beings Department of the Federal Police, the Federal Computer Crime Unit and ISPA (Internet Service Providers Association).

In creating a civil contact point, Child Focus hopes to establish a relationship of trust with potential informers of child pornography material, who are assured of being able to report completely anonymously. In addition, if they feel the need, informers may obtain the support of professional operators by calling the Child Focus emergency number 110.

The objective of is to collect as much information as possible on material presumed to involve child pornography and transmit it to the Federal Police, who will in turn inform the Centre of the action taken.

Informers who did not wish to remain anonymous will then be kept informed by Child Focus.

The collaboration procedures are set out in an agreement with the judicial authorities and the police bodies.

A joint international approach is essential in action to combat the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet. Consequently, Child Focus has joined Inhope, a network currently bringing together the civil contact points of 11 European countries. When the police investigation or judicial enquiry is not conducted in Belgium, Child Focus passes on reports to the contact point in the country concerned.

3. Potential risks connected with the Internet and chatrooms

Since it was first created, Child Focus has been regularly questioned by worried parents whose child has come across child pornography material on the Internet or has received shocking propositions when chatting.

Faced with this growing concern, the Centre launched its first prevention campaign in March 2000 with the theme of "Surf Safe".

At the end of 2001, Child Focus was approached by the Federal Police, who are receiving more and more reports on abuses committed against children who have been met through chat programmes allowing SMS messages to be sent via television. Two Flemish channels, VT4 and Kanaal 2, agreed to cooperate and since January have been regularly showing Child Focus messages on their chatboxes to encourage children to be careful and advising them not to reveal too much about themselves.

Unfortunately, chatboxes constitute an ideal hunting ground for paedophiles and abuses are on the increase. According to the British police, one child in five visiting a chatroom is approached one day or another by a paedophile. It also seems that 40% of youngsters use the Internet to arrange a chat-date. Despite the preventive measures taken by chatbox operators, such as the removal of certain words, the intervention of moderators supervising the whole business and communication to the judicial bodies of the logbook of messages in the event of a complaint, foolproof monitoring of chatboxes is impossible, hence the value of distributing information on this phenomenon on a large scale and warning of the potential dangers.

A Web site has been specially designed to provide information both for children and adolescents and for parents and teachers : ( ).

As from December 2002, through the "Click Safe" campaign, Child Focus can now be contacted to report abuse, to seek information or to order documentation (in French or Dutch) via the e-mail address .

Network

1. Volunteers

To distribute posters of missing children, Child Focus can count on the vital assistance of over 1,200 volunteers, with a view to finding these children as quickly as possible.

In each of the country's 27 administrative districts, Child Focus has set up an antenna which coordinates the poster campaigns.

The development of these 27 volunteer antennae requires constant guidance. In fact, volunteers must regularly be replaced as some of them no longer have the same amount of time available. On the other hand, their motivation must be maintained and the coordinators have to be assessed in order to ensure or even improve the effectiveness of poster campaigns. To this end, a second coordinator has been recruited for the administrative district of Antwerp, whilst the 19 communes of Brussels have been divided into three areas for putting up posters.

Quarterly meetings of coordinators are organised within Child Focus. They constitute an essential communication tool for training and informing coordinators and providing them with an opportunity to ask questions and for taking stock of themes that concern all the antennae.

The total number of posters of missing children put up by volunteers in 2002 was over 27,000 (over 79,000 in 2001). More than 35,000 fliers were also distributed (44,000 in 2001).

In addition, the coordinators and their teams of volunteers organise Child Focus stands at specific events. These stands represent an opportunity for Child Focus to make itself better known locally and to raise funds by selling articles with the Child Focus logo.

2. Structured partners

Apart from volunteers, Child Focus can also count on a structured network of partners. This is essential in order to operate effectively and keep the duration of a poster distribution campaign under control.

For instance, the Centre can call upon public transport services. The three regional public transport companies, STIB, TEC and De Lijn, which form part of the Union Belge des Transports en Commun Urbains et Régionaux (UBTCUR), make their vehicles available to Child Focus within 24 hours. This represents a network of 5,000 vehicles running every day and offers invaluable assistance to the Centre, which coordinates the operations and contacts the local representatives of each transport operator according to the search areas to be covered. Every tram and bus has a special place for A4 posters. If discreet fliers are to be distributed, these can also be given to STIB drivers and inspectors.

SNCB is also a highly valued partner of the Centre. It carries some 700,000 passengers daily and over 3,000 trains run every day. The agreement with SNCB states that within 24 hours a poster of a missing child (60 cm x 1 m) can be printed and put up in places reserved for this purpose at particularly busy spots in the 72 largest stations in the country. A4 posters can also be put up in around 300 smaller stations and fliers can be distributed to personnel on trains and to platform supervisors.

Delhaize Le Lion allows posters to be put up in its 112 supermarkets and its 13 Delhaize 2 shops. The posters are distributed within 24 hours to different points of sale depending on the regions to be covered. A fixed place is reserved in shops for A3 posters or information from the Centre.

Westra and Tondeur Diffusion, two companies distributing newspapers and magazines, also make their networks available to the Centre, as does Vedior Interim, which willingly involves its network of temporary employment agencies in search campaigns.

To be able to put up posters in all Belgium's pharmacies via the different wholesalers, the Centre has signed an agreement with Laboratoria Flandria and Febelco for poster campaigns in Flanders and with Alpha Répartition for campaigns in Wallonia.