United Nations
The United Nations (abbreviated UN) was formed after WW2 to promote world peace. Since that point, the UN, its agencies and consultative network have undergone considerable expansion towards sometimes esoteric and obscure bureaucratic purviews, including child protection.
Of relevance to MAPs
- For a string of controversies, see UNICEF.
The UN and associated international NGOs such as ECPAT and UNICEF have been central in attempts to globalize the unscientific concept of "all persons 0-18 being children, everywhere, at all times".[1] One notable aspect of the UN's recent campaigning on this topic has been a pivot towards using "violence against children", or "sexual violence" as opposed to "Child Sexual Abuse".
Owing to its size, the UN has been caught up in numerous embarrassing controversies, for example including hundreds of allegations against peacekeeping staff who it appears had developed a culture of using child and youth sex workers.[2]
Anti-fiction positions
In 2019, the UN issued updated guidelines on the implementation of the UNCRC's optional protocol on child exploitation. These included encouraging states to "include in their legal provisions regarding child sexual abuse material (child pornography) representations of non-existing children or of persons appearing to be children".[3]
Positions on young people and tech
In 2022, a PSA entitled "Playdate with a Predator"[4] was released on social media by the UN's Global Partnership and Fund to End Violence Against Children, in partnership with Microsoft, Twitter, TikTok and Roblox. The short 30-second video, one of two PSAs, recycled old tropes about "online pedophiles", including an appeal to gender ambiguity.
In 2021, a UNICEF publication concerning the effects of pornography on young people[5] caused a controversy,[6] by stating:
There are several different kinds of risks and harms that have been linked to children’s exposure to pornography, but there is no consensus on the degree to which pornography is harmful to children. [...] As discussed above, the evidence is inconsistent, and there is currently no universal agreement on the nature and extent of the harm caused to children by viewing content classified as pornography. However, policymakers in several countries have deemed that children should not be able to access commercial pornography websites designed for users aged over 18.
"8 March Principles" saga
A 2023 controversy arose on social media[7] following the publication of new legal principles problematizing the idea that adolescents are inherently unable to consent, including to sex:
The International Committee of Jurists (ICJ) along with UNAIDS and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) officially launched a new set of expert jurist legal principles to guide the application of international human rights law to criminal law.
The ‘8 March principles’ as they are called lay out a human rights-based approach to laws criminalising conduct in relation to sex, drug use, HIV, sexual and reproductive health, homelessness and poverty.
[...]
Emphasizing that, with respect to the application of criminal law in connection with consent, international human rights law requires paying due regard to:
[...]
b) adolescents’ evolving capacity to consent in certain contexts, in fact, even if not in law, when they are below the prescribed minimum age of consent in domestic law
[...]
Moreover, sexual conduct involving persons below the domestically prescribed minimum age of consent to sex may be consensual in fact, if not in law. In this context, the enforcement of criminal law should reflect the rights and capacity of persons under 18 years of age to make decisions about engaging in consensual sexual conduct and their right to be heard in matters concerning them.[8]
Conservatives, once again suggested this was an attempt to "prepare" the public for the release of sensitive documents concerning Jeffrey Epstein's esteemed visitors.
See also
References
- ↑ Terminology guidelines For the protection of children from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse
- ↑ AP Exclusive: UN child sex ring left victims but no arrests
- ↑ Guidelines regarding the implementation of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (at 63.)
- ↑ Playdate with a Predator
- ↑ Digital Age Assurance Tools and Children’s Rights Online across the Globe. A Discussion Paper.
- ↑ Fact check on the porn controversy
- ↑ New UN-backed legal recommendations normalize sex with minors, outraged critics say
- ↑ New legal principles launched on International Women’s Day to advance decriminalization efforts and The 8 March Principles fora Human Rights-Based Approach to Criminal Law Proscribing Conduct Associated with Sex, Reproduction, Drug Use, HIV, Homelessness and Poverty