Signed 25 May 2000 Effective 18 January 2002 Signatories 121 | Location New York Condition 10 ratifications Parties 173 | |
The Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography is a protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and requires parties to prohibit the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.
Contents
The Protocol was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2000 and entered into force on 18 January 2002. As of May 2016, 173 states are party to the protocol and another nine states have signed but not ratified it.
According to the preamble, the protocol is intended to achieve the purposes of certain articles in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, where the rights are defined with the provision that parties should take "appropriate measures" to protect them. Article 1 of the protocol requires parties to protect the rights and interests of child victims of trafficking, child prostitution and child pornography, child labour and especially the worst forms of child labour.
The remaining articles in the protocol outline the standards for international law enforcement covering diverse issues such as jurisdictional factors, extradition, mutual assistance in investigations, criminal or extradition proceedings and seizure and confiscation of assets as well.
It also obliges parties to pass laws within their own territories against these practices "punishable by appropriate penalties that take into account their grave nature."
Definitions
The Protocol requires parties to prohibit the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. Article 2 defines the prohibition:
The Convention generally defines a child as any human being under the age of 18, unless an earlier age of majority is recognized by a country's law.
Qatar
Qatar added in its signing statement that it was "subject to a general reservation regarding any provisions in the protocol that are in conflict with the Islamic Shariah." Objections to this reservation were registered in the signing statements by Austria, France, Germany, Norway, Spain and Sweden. Qatar withdrew the reservation on 18 June 2008, and currently has no reservations to the Protocol.
Sweden
Sweden has clarified its interpretation of child pornography as applying only to the visual representation of sexual acts with a child or minor persons, and not applying to adults acting, posing, or dressing, as a child.