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Meeting in LÃ¼beck between the National Co-ordinators and the Competence Centres in the Children at Risk project, 17-18 September 2001, Germany

19.09.2001 | Sweden, , Seyfert Helena(Sweden

Speech by Mr Ulrich Paschold, Senior Principal, Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Elderly Citizens, Youth and Women, Berlin

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are surely still under shock from the terrible terrorist attacks in the United States which have filled the entire civilised world with repulsion and horror. Our thoughts continue to be with the people of America and especially with those who have lost relatives and friends as a result of these cowardly acts. There is no justification for this incomprehensible terror.

Before opening our meeting I would like to ask you to please to observe a minute of silence in memory of the victims of this terrorist attack.

Thank You

It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you - also on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, Dr Christine Bergmann - to this two-day meeting of the National Co-ordinators and Competence Centres in LÃ¼beck.

Combating the sexual abuse of children in all its forms requires increasingly vigor international co-operation and networking of all the agencies devoted to the protection of children.

I am therefore extremely pleased that we have succeeded in creating a multi-professional IT-network for regional co-operation among the states bordering on the Baltic Sea. I do belive that networks such as this are fast gaining importance.

Indeed, we are all aware that the commercial sexual exploitation of children does not stop at national boundaries and, as a result, that national measures alone do not suffice. What we need is international co-operation and networking.

The Second World Congress against Commercial Sexual exploitation of Children which, as we know, is to be held from 17-20th December 2001 in Yokohama, should be also used as a platform to present this exemplary IT project.

I would therefore like to avail myself of this opportunity to explicity thank the Swedish Special Group for Children at Risk in the Baltic Sea Region, The Ministry of Health and Social Affairs of Sweden and the Ministry of Children and Family Affairs of Norway, for the work they have invested in creating this IT network: "The Child Cente for Children at Risk in the Baltic Sea Region".

I would also like to express my gartitude to the Child Protection Centres in Kiel and LÃ¼beck for organizing our meeting here in the lovely Hanseatic City of LÃ¼beck.

We are meeting here today to exchange information and ideas about problems which still arise in implementing the project as well as about future strategy, with a view to the imminent transfer of the project to the CBSS. One of the questions to be answered is also whether we should extend this IT network beyond the area of the commercial sexual expoitation of children to other aspects of child protection.

This opens up for us - at least IÂ´m in a position to say this with regards to Germany and the German assistance landscape - a number of new questions, especially with regards to the structural framework conditions including that of the Competence Centre in Germany. This means that we must reflect on intelligent ways of and concepts for integrating our multifaceted and differentiated assistance landscape into this network.

A plausible path towards achieving this will be presented to us tomorrow by Mr KrÃ¶hnert from the Federal Association of Child Protection Shelters along with the "Virtual Child Protection Shelter" which is being sponsored with funds from the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth.