“Hope For Children” UNCRC Policy Centre (HFC) realized a seminar for the presentation of the project ‘Sweetie 1,000’, where the key speaker was the initiator of the project Mr. Hans Guijt from the organization Terre des Hommes Netherlands.
The Director-General of “Hope For Children” UNCRC Policy Centre, Mr. Joseph Varughese, thanked Mr. Guijt for accepting the invitation of the organization for this seminar, and welcomed the participants including the Ambassador of The Netherlands in Cyprus, H.E. Mrs. Brechje Schwachofer, the Head of the Cybercrime Unit of the Cyprus Police, Mr. Andreas Anastasiades, and the Head of the section of families and children of the Social Welfare Services, Mrs. Chara Tapanidou. Dr. Antonis Stylianou, member of the Senior Advisory Board of the organization through a short speech referred to the action of the organization for the prevention and handling of cases of sexual abuse against children, emphasizing on the importance of the project Sweetie 1,000 in the efforts for combating this phenomenon.
Mr. Hans Guijt, during his presentation described the goals of the project ‘Sweetie 1,000’ which were the examination of the nature and the extent of this new phenomenon, the “Online child sex tourism (webcam child sex tourism) which according to the results is being spread in the internet at a worrying level. The fictitious character of the virtual 10-year old child from Philippines "Sweetie", used by the researchers of the project, managed to trace within 2 months 1000 offenders from 71 different countries around the world, out of which 1 was traced in Cyprus.
The dossiers with all the information of the offenders have been handed to the Interpol which is now investigating the cases. Mr. Guijt also referred to the serious consequences of this phenomenon on the children-victims, while he stressed that the offenders traced do not have any special characteristics since these are persons having normal life, business people, with families etc. An important suggestion from the speaker was that the law enforcement authorities of the states conduct “patrols” in the public spaces of the internet the same way they do in the streets. This is something that would definitely constitute a deterrent factor for those involved in such phenomena.
