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December 12, 2012, Abu Dhabi, United Arab EmiratesChild Exploitation

VGT announces new members

VGT announces new members
VGT announces new members

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates – The Virtual Global Taskforce (VGT), an international alliance dedicated to combating online child sexual abuse, has voted in four new organizations as members.

The Korean National Police and Indonesian National Police were voted in as law enforcement partners, and Kinsa and NetClean were voted in as private sector partners. KINSA is non-profit organization that helps to protect, rescue and heal child victims of child sexual abuse whose images are shared on the Internet and NetClean develops technical products to stop the spread of this material.

The four organizations will officially become VGT members at a formal signing-in event to occur at the next VGT board of management meeting in April 2013.

"The VGT is excited to be bringing in these new members, from both law enforcement and the private sector, who are committed to supporting the collaborative efforts of the VGT in its mission to protect children from online sexual exploitation," said VGT Chair Ian Quinn, deputy assistant director and head of the Cyber Crimes Center at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

The VGT also announced three new strategic initiatives for the next few years:

  • To enhance the global capacity of law enforcement around the world to fight this crime. The VGT aims to accomplish this by influencing worldwide legislators, industry and others to improve the protections for children; by supporting countries in developing their own strategies and delivering standardized training and technological solutions; and by anticipating global trends and developing effective mitigation for new risks.
  • To increase and enhance engagement with existing partners and engaging new partners, from both law enforcement and private sectors, who can make a significant contribution to the work of the VGT, and help target our engagement towards growing and emerging threats towards children.
  • To develop a global approach towards the issue of traveling child sex offenders to ensure a coordinated and effective response strategy by taking a victim-centered approach to prevention and protection.

These announcements were made in Abu Dhabi Dec. 13 during the fifth biennial VGT Conference International Collaboration: An Enabler for Prevention. The conference addressed topics related to online child sexual exploitation, including victim identification, crime prevention, legislation engagement, technology solutions, the opening of the European Cyber Crime Center, industry reporting and improving international collaboration.

Lt. General HH Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, inaugurated the conference Monday at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi.

The nine VGT law enforcement member agencies are ICE; the Australian Federal Police; the United Kingdom's Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre; the United Arab Emirates' Ministry of Interior; the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre, a division of the Canadian Police Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, Royal Canadian Mounted Police; the Italian Postal and Communication Police Service; New Zealand Police; INTERPOL and Europol.

VGT private sector partners are End Child Prostitution Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes network, International Association of Internet Hotlines, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, PayPal, Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit, World Vision Australia, Research In Motion, and The Code.

Visit VGT's website for more information.
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