UN launches campaign for universal ban on sale and prostitution of children

(May 26,2010) The United Nations on Tuesday launched a major campaign for a universal ban on the sale of children for prostitution and pornography,
and to protect youngsters from armed conflict. UN Secy. General Ban Ki Moon called for the adoption of treaty protocols to outlaw these evils calling for full ratification by 2012.
“The sad truth is that too many children in today’s world suffer appalling abuse,” Ban told a ceremony at the headquarters of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in New York, marking the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the protocols strengthening the Convention on the Rights of the Child by providing a moral and legal shield for youngsters vulnerable to prostitution and pornography or caught up in armed conflict. He said “Two-thirds of all Member States have endorsed these instruments. On this tenth anniversary of their adoption, I urge all countries to ratify them within the next two years.”
Ban noted, too, that fewer States now permit children to join the armed forces and reiterated his previous calls to the Security Council to consider tough measures on those States and insurgent groups that still recruit children.
More countries are also reforming legislation and criminalizing the sale of children, child prostitution, child pornography and the sexual exploitation of children, with international cooperation helping to dismantle paedophile networks, remove child pornography from the Internet, and protect children from sexual exploitation by tourists, he said, “Nonetheless, much remains to be done,” he declared.