Fuente: © European Parliament
http://www.europarl.eu.int/

EU: Fighting child sex offences through better judicial cooperation

/noticias.info/ - Should EU countries swap data from their criminal records on child sex offenders to prevent the same individuals committing further crimes in other Member States? The Civil Liberties Committee met on Tuesday 13 September to discuss the pros and cons of an initiative on this subject put forward by the Belgium government last year.


"The idea is quite simple: people convicted for sex offences and prohibited from working on the supervision of children should not escape this ban by going to another Member State", explained the Belgium Minister of Justice Laurette ONKELINX in a meeting with MEPs. If information on criminal records were swapped more easily and reliably between Member States this could help track down suspects.

The Belgian initiative aims to ensure that a sex offender prohibited by a court from working with children in one Member State is not easily able to get a job involving the supervision of children in another State. The idea was prompted by the increasing number of crimes such as the often-cited Fourniret case, in which a French national accused of raping children in 1987 was able to get a job in Belgium as a school canteen monitor and later committed a similar crime there. Ms Onkelinx argued that information on criminal records should be sent automatically to the authorities where the person convicted is residing and should be also given to any other Member State that requests it.

The minister said the initiative was intended only to supplement other Commission proposals on judicial cooperation. However, many MEPs felt the initiative did not go far enough. Inger SEGELSTRÖM (PES, SE) suggested including measures to protect children from being abused within the family. Agustín DIAZ DE MERA GARCIA (EPP-ED, ES), referring to the case of a British citizen who was not involved in the supervision of children but killed two minors in Spain after being released from prison in the UK, said "This decision will be far more effective if we broaden its range to cover other kinds of crime. We should explore the possibility of mandatory transmission of this kind of information". Lastly, Magda KOSANE KOVACS (PES, HU) mentioned the problems the EU will face in harmonising the exchange of data from criminal records, as the authorities in some countries are not allowed to hand out information on convictions after a certain period of time.

The EP rapporteur on this issue, Bogusław SONIK (EPP-ED, PL), broadly supported the Belgium initiative although he added: "if we are to introduce this prohibition from working with children in all Member States we need to make sure the authorities are well prepared to implement it. We should also be very careful with the automatic recognition of such prohibitions".

NB: The Belgian initiative to fight sexual offences against children will be discussed in the Council of Ministers next November. The European Commission plans to publish a communication giving guidelines on this issue by the end of 2005. notas_de_prensa_archivo