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Kids aren’t all right
Laurence Chester
| Posted on 29 January 2007
Article
Comments: 0
Europe needs a cross border social work agency to tackle the growth in
international child exploitation
Progress are currently holding a series of excellent events exploring what we, the members,
would like to see an incoming successor to the prime minister tackle in his/her first 100
days. Here is mine: a European child protection register supported by a dedicated specialist
European social work agency.
In recent years, Europe has experienced new internal and external migrancy patterns.
Apart from the many obvious benefits this has encouraged, there have also been increasing
concern for those who have been vulnerable to the iniquitous side of this progress. Where
poverty, the refugee experience or other such drivers have determined child migrancy,
there has been serious concern for their welfare and protection. Organised crime involving
trafficking and misuse of the internet has opened up new vistas of opportunity for those
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seeking to exploit children, as evidenced by Operation Ore.
Cross border social work requires professionals with the experience and ability to
demonstrate appropriate sensitivities to issues that often emerge within the international
arena. A dedicated international social work agency working in partnership with local child
protection services, but solely focusing on the cross border component of child protection
work, is urgently needed. It is a travesty that currently, a child may be considered to be at
such significant risk of harm they are placed on an ‘at risk’ register (or similar) in one
country, only for this information to be entirely inaccessible if a child moves to another
country, even within the EU. Practitioners in the UK often complain about this being the
case between local authorities here, and this situation must end. It is counter to our ethical
and, in my view, legal duty to protect children.
A cross border agency would enable opportunities to share sensitive information between
statutory child welfare agencies, embed learning, and be a foundation of international
partnerships concerned with child welfare issues. It would also be in a better position to
provide social work support for children caught up in Interpol/Europol investigations – its
role to solely focus on supporting children.
To develop the required level of international cooperation, strategic governmental support
is required. In the UK, former Home Office minister Des Browne offered the following
observations and support: ‘In my view, the concept of adopting an international approach
through professionalised social services is a very attractive proposition. It presents a
significant challenge to the government to generate co-operation with other countries with
a view to putting in place the level of co-operation necessary to ensure that appropriate
standards are applied across international boundaries.’
The time for parochialism is over. Agencies and governments need to work together to
address this problem.
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