Approach, vision and methods of work of the Special Rapporteur

In its resolution 68/147, the General Assembly requested the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography to continue to submit reports to the Assembly and the Human Rights Council on the activities undertaken in the fulfilment of her mandate.

On 27 March 2014, the Human Rights Council adopted resolution 25/6, in which it decided to extend the mandate of the Special Rapporteur for three years. On 8 May, the Council appointed Maud de Boer-Buquicchio as the new Special Rapporteur. She succeeds Najat Maalla M’jid, who held the mandate from May 2008 to May 2014.

In the present report, the Special Rapporteur provides information on the activities undertaken by her predecessor from August 2013 to May 2014 and her own activities from June to August 2014. She also provides an outline of her approach to and vision of the scope of the mandate and the methods of work that she will develop for the strategic implementation of her mandate.

In her last annual report, submitted to the Human Rights Council at its twenty-fifth session (A/HRC/25/48), the previous Special Rapporteur reflected on her six-year tenure and provided an overview of the main issues relating to her mandate. There were three addenda to her report on missions undertaken in 2013, dealing with her visits to Kyrgyzstan (A/HRC/25/48/Add.1), Madagascar (A/HRC/25/48/Add.2) and Benin (A/HRC/25/48/Add.3).

The outgoing Special Rapporteur undertook an official visit to Benin from 28 October to 8 November 2013 and conducted a follow-up visit to Honduras from 21 to 25 April 2014. The Governments of Egypt and Belarus, on 24 February and 7 July 2014 respectively, renewed their invitations to the Special Rapporteur to undertake an official visit to those countries. The Special Rapporteur highly appreciates both invitations and will take them into consideration in the preliminary analysis that she is conducting to determine her workplan with regard to country visits. The analysis is based on a set of criteria developed by the special procedures system and includes country visits requested by her predecessor and accepted by the Governments concerned.

The outgoing Special Rapporteur participated in numerous conferences and seminars during the period under review. On 1 and 2 August 2013, she participated in a regional consultation organized by ECPAT in Addis Ababa on action to stop the commercial sexual exploitation of children in Africa. On 12 September, she participated in a workshop on the protection of migrant children in the framework of the International Metropolis Conference in Tampere, Finland. On 18 September, she attended a workshop on alternative care organized in Paris by the International Organization of la Francophonie. On 28 September, she gave a lecture at the International University of Rabat on children’s rights. On 10 and 11 December, she attended a round table on promoting and protecting the rights of street children in South-East Asia organized jointly by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Consortium for Street Children and AVIVA in Singapore. On 11 March 2014, during the twenty-fifth session of the Human Rights Council, she organized a side event on the protection of children from sexual exploitation in the context of major sports events. On 18 and 19 March, she delivered a lecture at the Paris Institute of Political Science (Sciences Po) in Paris on international mechanisms on children’s rights. On 3 and 4 April, she participated in an expert group meeting organized by OHCHR to review the technical guidance on the application of a human rights-based approach to the implementation of policies and programmes to reduce and eliminate preventable mortality and morbidity of children under 5 years of age.

After her effective appointment on 2 June 2014, the new Special Rapporteur participated in a series of activities. On 9 and 10 June, she attended an expert consultation on information and communications technology and violence against children organized in San Jose by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children. On 18 and 19 June, she conducted her first working visit to Geneva, where she met the Chair of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, a liaison officer of the United Nations Children’s Fund, senior staff of OHCHR and numerous non-governmental organizations working on child rights and protection issues. In addition, she met the Permanent Representatives of Uruguay and the European Union, which co-sponsor the annual Human Rights Council resolution on the rights of the child, to explore ways to enhance cooperation on children’s issues that fall within the scope of her mandate. With the aim of continuing the work of her predecessor, the Special Rapporteur also met the Permanent Representative of India to discuss possible dates for a country visit, which had been accepted by the Government of India in 2012, and the Permanent Representative of Brazil to follow up on joint efforts deployed in awareness-raising activities for the protection of children in the context of major sports events.

The Special Rapporteur intends to ensure the continuity of the work of her predecessors, maintaining and building on their activities and accomplishments. She will seek to consolidate their efforts and will explore new directions in which to develop the mandate based on her vision, expertise and experience. The Special Rapporteur wishes to pay tribute to her predecessor, Najat Maalla M’jid, for her contribution and commitment to increasing knowledge and awareness of the scourge of the sale and sexual exploitation of children, for her constructive dialogue and action-oriented recommendations during and after country visits and for strengthening cooperation with civil society and non-governmental organizations. She is also to be commended for having consulted children and taken their views into account in her work, with the ultimate goal of making specific changes in their lives.

The Special Rapporteur will continue to take a consultative and participatory approach in the implementation of her mandate, as required by Human Rights Council resolution 7/13. She will engage in constructive dialogue with Member States and strengthen partnerships with United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, international and regional organizations, national human rights institution, civil society, non-governmental organizations, children’s rights organizations and institutions, the business sector and academic institutions. Her intention is to act as a facilitator of action-oriented dialogue between key stakeholders at the local, national, regional and international levels. The Special Rapporteur is aware that her mandate is the only one stemming from the Council with an exclusive focus on children, and she intends to fulfil the ensuing responsibility through the development of close ties of cooperation with relevant stakeholders in order to achieve the objectives of the mandate.

The Special Rapporteur will adopt a child-centred approach in the implementation of her mandate. All activities to prevent and combat the sale and sexual exploitation of children will be designed and developed incorporating the four principles enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, namely non-discrimination (art. 2), the best interests of the child (art. 3), the right to life, survival and development (art. 6) and respect for the views of the child (art. 12). Children will not be seen exclusively as passive recipients, victims or dependants, but will be treated as rights holders and citizens who are entitled to be heard and to have their views taken seriously. This will be ensured through the adoption of child participation mechanisms in her methods of work, such as the use of child-sensitive and appropriate information, child-friendly spaces and forums, children’s involvement in research and data collection, empowerment of child-led organizations and peer initiatives, and child participation in developing and monitoring child protection projects and policies. Such participatory mechanisms will enable the Special Rapporteur to reach out to children and those working and living with them and to take their opinions and suggestions into account in a meaningful way in her recommendations to promote and defend children’s rights.

The Special Rapporteur will integrate a gender perspective throughout her work, as mandated by resolution 7/13. She considers that sensitivity to the ways in which the phenomena of the sale and sexual exploitation of children affects boys and girls differently is essential for proposing effective recommendations. In this respect, she will take into consideration the gender dimension of sexual exploitation which, according to available data, disproportionately affects girls. The Special Rapporteur will take into account the different needs and opportunities of boys and girls through, among other things, the collection and analysis of disaggregated data and propose gender-specific recommendations for their care and recovery.

The Special Rapporteur is aware of the various bodies and mechanisms within the United Nations system dealing with situations and violations affecting children. As required by resolution 7/13, she intends to work in close coordination with them in order to ensure complementarity and avoid unnecessary duplication. In respect of the special procedures mandate holders who address cross-cutting issues and concerns relating to her mandate, such as the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants and the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, she intends to discuss and develop with them joint methods of work, such as the presentation of joint thematic reports, the conducting of coordinated country visits, the issuance of joint communications and the organization of joint awareness-raising activities. The Special Rapporteur will also deploy efforts to mainstream the protection and promotion of children’s rights within the special procedures system, while according priority to certain issues and concerns that need to be tackled in a coordinated manner in order to enhance their impact when bringing particular situations to the attention of Governments and other stakeholders concerned. Her ultimate goal is to ensure that all mandate holders take a common approach towards addressing the impact of legislative and policy measures on children and their rights.

The Special Rapporteur will also seek to enhance cooperation with the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Children in Armed Conflict, whose thematic mandates are by their nature bound up with the issues of sale and sexual exploitation of children. Modalities for cooperation may include regularly sharing information, coordinating activities and conducting joint actions, including issuing joint reports and organizing joint awareness-raising events. The Special Rapporteur will also look to strengthen interaction and cooperation with relevant regional mechanisms, in particular the Special Rapporteur on Rights of Women in Africa of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Office of the Rapporteur on the Rights of the Child of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In addition, she will advocate the development of a permanent regional mechanism dedicated specifically to the promotion and protection of children’s rights in Asia and the Pacific.

The scope of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur is determined by the resolutions on the establishment and renewal of the mandate, in particular Commission on Human Rights resolution 1990/68 and Human Rights Council resolution 7/13. Hence, the Special Rapporteur will continue to analyse the root causes of the sale and sexual exploitation of children; address all the contributing factors, including demand; make recommendations on preventing and combating new patterns of the phenomena; identify and promote good practices on measures to combat them; promote comprehensive prevention strategies; and make recommendations on aspects relating to the rehabilitation of child victims.

The Special Rapporteur will continue to apply a broad interpretation of the scope of her mandate on the basis of the aforementioned resolutions, which require her, among other things, to consider matters relating to the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography and to make recommendations on the promotion and protection of the human rights of children who are actual or potential victims. Consequently, in line with the work of her predecessors, the Special Rapporteur will continue to address issues relating to the sexual abuse of, violence against and exploitation of children, with the ultimate goal of promoting a greater level of protection by the stakeholders concerned, in particular Member States. She intends to remain alert to emerging trends and specific aspects of the phenomena and to study the threats and risk factors that enhance the vulnerability of children to them, with the aim of proposing and promoting comprehensive strategies and good practices to combat the sale and sexual exploitation of children effectively.

The Special Rapporteur’s framework for action is also guided by the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. Although she intends to use the definitions provided by articles 2 and 3 of the Optional Protocol as a reference, the Special Rapporteur will continue to address the various aspects and forms of sexual abuse, violence and exploitation directed at children that fall within the scope of her mandate, beyond those guaranteed by the Optional Protocol, with the ultimate goal of enhancing the protection of children from sale and sexual exploitation. Similarly, the Special Rapporteur will be guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the core international human rights treaty specifically related to her mandate, which sets the international norms and standards regarding children’s rights. The Special Rapporteur will also take into account general comments and decisions of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which assist in interpreting the scope and meaning of specific articles, provisions and themes of the Convention. To the extent that the situations covered by her mandate are multifaceted and could have implications for the enjoyment of a wide range of human rights, the other core international human rights treaties¹ also provide a natural legal framework for the mandate, as does the jurisprudence of the relevant treaty monitoring bodies.

1. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families; International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance; and Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. ↩

Other international child rights instruments complement the Convention and the Optional Protocol and provide detailed norms and standards with a view to prohibiting, preventing and responding to the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. They include the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the Convention; the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182), of the International Labour Organization (ILO); the ILO Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138); the ILO Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), and its Protocol of 2014 adopted to address gaps in implementation of the Convention and reaffirm that measures of prevention, protection and remedies were necessary to achieve the effective and sustained elimination of forced labour; and the Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption.

At the regional level, relevant instruments relating to the mandate include the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, the Inter-American Convention on International Traffic in Minors and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution.

The Special Rapporteur will also take into account decisive commitments and standards on children adopted at the international level, in particular the Rio de Janeiro Declaration and Call for Action to Prevent and Stop Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents (2008), the Yokohama Global Commitment (2001) and the Stockholm Declaration and Agenda for Action against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (1996).

The Special Rapporteur will continue to address endemic situations and emerging threats relating to the sale and sexual exploitation of children, with the aim of preventing and combating the phenomena and providing children with human rights-compliant protection, care and recovery. The Special Rapporteur will therefore examine issues, trends and effects relating to the sexual exploitation of children online; sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism, including in the context of major sports events; child prostitution, child pornography and child trafficking for sale and sexual exploitation; and sale of children for the purposes of illegal adoption, transfer of organs, child marriage and forced labour.

The Special Rapporteur will carry out her mandate in compliance with the code of conduct for special procedures mandate holders annexed to Human Rights Council resolution 5/2 and the manual of operations of the special procedures of the Council as adopted at the fifteenth annual meeting of special procedures mandate holders, held in June 2008 (A/HRC/10/24, chap. V.A). The Special Rapporteur will discharge her functions with complete independence and in accordance with the terms of her mandate, through dialogue and cooperation with all stakeholders, with the objective of preventing and combating the sale and sexual exploitation of children from a human rights perspective.

For the strategic implementation of her mandate, the Special Rapporteur intends to maximize the potential of established methods of work of the special procedures system. Pursuant to the resolutions creating and renewing her mandate, she will present annual thematic reports to the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly, conduct country visits and make recommendations directed at Governments and concerned stakeholders, send communications, including urgent appeals, on allegations of violations and engage with relevant stakeholders, such as children’s rights organizations and institutions, for awareness-raising and advocacy activities in order to facilitate the achievement of the objectives of her mandate.

The Special Rapporteur will pay particular attention to the follow-up of her various activities, in particular country visits and communications, on the basis of information gathered from Governments, local partners, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and the business sector regarding the effective implementation of her and her predecessors’ recommendations. For this purpose, as stated above, she will develop sustained partnerships with all stakeholders through exchanges of information, preparation of country visits, contributions to thematic reports and organization of workshops and seminars, provided that her mandate is supported with adequate resources.

The Special Rapporteur will continue to take a holistic approach towards effectively combating the sale and sexual exploitation of children. This involves promoting the design and implementation of comprehensive strategies and programmes of action aimed at the establishment of rights-based national child protection systems, which encompass awareness-raising, prevention, sexual education, law enactment and enforcement, collection and analysis of reliable data, birth registration, detection, investigation, prosecution, punishment and treatment of perpetrators, child-sensitive counselling, complaint and reporting mechanisms, care, recovery and social integration of child victims and, in general, the promotion of children’s rights. The Special Rapporteur will aim to propose specific and achievable recommendations, promote good practices and successful initiatives and facilitate transnational cooperation and increased corporate social responsibility. In this respect, the Special Rapporteur intends to support efforts by Member States to prevent and combat the sale and sexual exploitation of children and to increase visibility of their positive results and achievements with the aim of promoting their replication in other parts of the world.

Building upon the work of her predecessors, the Special Rapporteur intends to conduct research and present her first thematic report on the issue of information and communications technology and sexual exploitation of children. In that report, she will update the studies presented on the topic by her predecessors in 2005 (E/CN.4/2005/78 and Corr.2) and 2009 (A/HRC/12/23) and aim to reflect new trends, challenges, threats and responses to the phenomenon, including various types of child abuse and exploitation facilitated by information and communications technology, available legal instruments and good practices that assist in preventing and combating the phenomenon, and the role that the business sector and non-governmental organizations can play therein.

The Special Rapporteur also intends to develop, through research and thematic studies, other issues that directly affect her mandate, such as the consequences and impact of sale and sexual exploitation on child victims and the development of adequate comprehensive care to facilitate their recovery and reintegration. In addition, she will conduct research on a problem that has been the focus of the mandate since its creation by the Commission on Human Rights in its resolution 1999/68, namely the sale of children for the purposes of illegal adoption. The Special Rapporteur also plans to present a thematic report on the demand factor underpinning the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography that will update the 2006 thematic report on the topic (E/CN.4/2006/67). While the Special Rapporteur intends to accord priority to thematic studies on those issues, she will also continue to cover and follow up on other thematic concerns addressed by her predecessors, such as the issue of sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism, including in the context of major sports events, and the sale and sexual exploitation of children following humanitarian crises stemming from natural disasters and climate-related catastrophes.

The Special Rapporteur will carry out a preliminary analysis in order to select countries for visits, on the basis of a series of criteria developed by the special procedures system. The selection criteria include indicators such as whether visits have already been requested by her predecessors, follow-up to previous visits, communications sent by the mandate holder, implementation of effective programmes to prevent and combat the sale and sexual exploitation of children, ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography and reporting status, countries scheduled to undergo the second cycle of the universal periodic review, invitations from States, and proposals from OHCHR field presences, United Nations funds and programmes, specialized agencies and non-governmental organizations on the basis of reliable reports of violations of children’s rights falling within the scope of the mandate. The selection of the countries to be visited will reflect a geographical balance and will tackle the transnational dimension of the phenomena.

As part of her commitment to continuing the work of her predecessors, the Special Rapporteur will accord priority to a country visit to India, whose Government agreed in 2012 to a visit requested by her predecessor. The Special Rapporteur will seek confirmation of new dates to conduct a country visit in the first half of 2015. Similarly, she intends to renew requests for visits sent by her predecessor, emphasizing the value of the visits for the implementation of her mandate. The Special Rapporteur will also send new requests for visits to other countries that may be selected as a result of the above-mentioned analysis.

The main purpose of the country visits is to propose specific recommendations to the Governments and other stakeholders concerned on protecting children’s rights and preventing violations and to assist them in better preventing and combating the sale and sexual exploitation of children. The Special Rapporteur will place particular emphasis on follow-up to recommendations made in her own reports, in addition to those made by the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, provided that they fall within the scope of her mandate. In addition, the Special Rapporteur will maximize the opportunities offered by country visits to enhance the preventive role of the special procedures system by highlighting situations that have the potential to degenerate into gross human rights violations and international crimes, while assisting States in their protection responsibilities.

The Special Rapporteur is aware of the challenge of explaining to interested stakeholders, such as victims and children’s organizations and institutions, the terms and scope of her mandate and its specificities vis-à-vis other mechanisms that address children’s issues. Consequently, the Special Rapporteur will step up efforts to improve understanding of her mandate in order to avoid confusion and obtain relevant information on allegations of violations and human rights concerns regarding legislation, policies and practices that fall within the scope of her mandate. This will enable her to react to allegations by means of communications to the Governments and other stakeholders concerned. In addition, the Special Rapporteur intends to develop substantive criteria that will govern the taking of action on a case or situation, in accordance with the strategic implementation of the mandate entrusted to her and provided that the admissibility criteria laid out in the code of conduct and the manual of operations are met. The purpose is to maximize the potential of communications as a prevention and protection tool of the special procedures system.

The Special Rapporteur will produce and disseminate, through her web page and other communications tools accessible to children, child-friendly material on the scope of the mandate, the type of allegations that she can address and the working methods available to respond to them. The material will be targeted at actual and potential victims, organizations and institutions working with children and other partners at the international, regional and local levels. The aim is to derive the maximum benefit from the information gathered by these entities in their daily work, to bring violations to the attention of Governments or other stakeholders concerned and to urge them to protect children and their rights.

Engagement with stakeholders for awareness-raising and advocacy

The Special Rapporteur will promote, facilitate and organize awareness-raising and advocacy activities on thematic priorities and issues of concern in relation to her mandate in order to enhance knowledge and visibility around them and call for the eradication and prevention of sale and sexual exploitation of children. The aforementioned thematic priorities and advocacy issues will guide the participation and support of the Special Rapporteur in various seminars, conferences and other events, which she will use to exchange information on relevant developments, identify and share good practices and successful initiatives and create synergies for advocacy purposes. The Special Rapporteur will also issue press statements on the occasion of relevant international days, including jointly with other special procedures mandate holders and child protection mechanisms and bodies, to alert stakeholders concerned of the need to address specific human rights issues relating to her mandate.

The Special Rapporteur will maximize awareness-raising opportunities offered by two commemorative dates in 2015, namely the twenty-fifth anniversary of the creation of the mandate on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography and the fifteenth anniversary of the adoption of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography by the General Assembly in its resolution 54/263. The Special Rapporteur will organize awareness-raising activities around those anniversaries to call for the ratification and effective implementation of international instruments aimed at stopping the sale and sexual exploitation of children. In addition, 2016 will mark the twentieth anniversary of the first World Congress against Sexual Exploitation of Children, and the Special Rapporteur intends to support relevant advocacy activities calling for the implementation of the political commitments adopted at that and subsequent world congresses.

Apart from raising awareness on thematic priorities that are directly affected by her mandate, the Special Rapporteur intends to work in close coordination and cooperation with relevant special procedures mandate holders and other international and regional mechanisms to engage in advocacy for cross-cutting issues of concern. Issues for joint advocacy efforts include preventing and ending child and forced marriage and protecting unaccompanied migrant children, street children and children with albinism from violence and exploitation.

In addition, the Special Rapporteur will continue to work on advocacy priorities developed by her predecessors, namely the universal ratification of the optional protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the non-criminalization of child victims of sexual exploitation. She will continue to urge States that have not already done so to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, joining efforts with the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Children in Armed Conflict. Moreover, she will support common efforts to promote the ratification and implementation of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure, which entered into force on 14 April 2014. Regarding non-criminalization of child victims, the Special Rapporteur will continue to urge States to review all aspects of national legislation that may affect children and ensure that they are not criminalized, penalized or stigmatized for having been victims of sexual abuse or exploitation.

The Special Rapporteur will also devote advocacy efforts to raising awareness of the fact that, under certain circumstances, the sale and sexual exploitation of children can amount to international crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. In such cases, she will call for perpetrators to be held accountable, through appropriate human rights- compliant justice mechanisms, at the national or international level, with the ultimate goal of bringing them to justice and providing redress to victims. The Special Rapporteur is convinced that ensuring accountability for those crimes can have a deterrent effect and will send a strong signal that such grave crimes deeply shock the conscience of humanity. At the same time, in her advocacy work the Special Rapporteur will insist on the responsibility of States to protect rights holders by adopting preventive measures, including legislation that criminalizes those horrendous acts.

Lastly, the Special Rapporteur will closely follow negotiations on sustainable development goals and the post-2015 development agenda in order to support efforts and build partnerships to ensure that child protection issues are included in the outcome document, and that the goal of putting an end to sexual abuse, violence and exploitation directed against children becomes a reality by 2030.

In the present report, her first to the General Assembly, the newly appointed Special Rapporteur has endeavoured to provide an outline of her initial reflections on the mandate and the strategic directions that she plans to take during her three-year tenure.

The Special Rapporteur intends to ensure the continuity of the work of her predecessors. She will seek to consolidate their efforts and will explore new directions in which to develop the mandate. She will continue to adopt a consultative, participatory, child-centred and holistic approach in the implementation of her mandate and will integrate a gender perspective throughout her work.

The Special Rapporteur will strive to ensure coordination and complementarity with relevant special procedures mandates and other United Nations mechanisms and bodies. She will make every effort to mainstream the protection and promotion of children’s rights within the special procedures system, and will advocate human rights-based approaches in the work of United Nations agencies, funds and programmes that address child protection issues. She will also seek to enhance cooperation with regional mechanisms on children’s rights.

The year 2015 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of the mandate on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. Its continuous renewal underscores the need for the international community to step up efforts to combat the increasing phenomena of sexual abuse and exploitation of children. To properly discharge her functions and ensure the effective implementation of her mandate, stronger support, through the allocation of sufficient means and resources, will be key in the coming years, in particular to ensure appropriate follow-up to her recommendations.