Weak enforcement hurting child sex abuse fight

By Stuart Grudgings

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Weak enforcement and impunity are blunting the effects of stricter laws against sexual exploitation of children through human trafficking, Internet pornography and other abuses, the head of the U.N. children's fund said on Wednesday.

At the start of a global conference on child sexual exploitation in Rio de Janeiro, UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman said a main goal of the meeting was to increase cooperation between companies and governments to tackle the growing problem of Internet child pornography.

"We've seen continued progress in terms of countries getting the proper laws in place, but do they have the enforcement mechanisms?" Veneman told Reuters in an interview during the conference, which is being attended by 3,000 delegates from more than 125 countries.

"I think that's really one of the questions that has to be answered. How do you get the right kinds of enforcement mechanisms, how do you train police, social workers, teachers to deal with victims? How do you get the judges and the legal structures themselves to prosecute cases in a timely way?"

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva opened the conference on Tuesday by signing a measure that toughens penalties against those convicted of child pornography offences. Brazil has been known as a sex-tourism destination.

GANG CONTROL, LOCAL CUSTOMS

Veneman, a former U.S. agriculture secretary, said Brazil was one of the countries that sometimes had difficulty enforcing such laws because of the control held by criminal gangs in big cities like Rio.

In other countries such as Yemen, she said laws against child marriage were often ignored because of ingrained local customs.