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<p>The Government is committed to tackling child sexual exploitation and abuse wherever
and however it occurs. There can be no safe space for paedophiles to operate either
here or abroad and we will do all we can to keep children safe. We continue to work
closely with law enforcement in the UK and international partners to close down online
networks and bring offenders to justice. We announced in the 2019 Spending Round an
investment of an £30 million to support UK law enforcement to bear down on child sexual
exploitation and abuse.</p><p>The Government is working closely with the Netherlands
to tackle online child sexual abuse material that is held in, and distributed from,
the Netherlands and available in the UK. The Dutch approach to addressing the threat
of online child sexual exploitation and abuse was outlined in a letter from their
Ministry of Justice and Security to the European Union. This provided a useful platform
for our engagement on how we can work together on this issue, identify areas of common
interest, best practice and ways to coordinate our efforts to tackle the threat.</p><p>The
Dutch hotline, EOKM, will also be working with the UK’s Internet Watch Foundation
to combat the issue of child sexual abuse material. In 1996 when the Internet Watch
Foundation was founded, the UK hosted 18% of the global total of online child sexual
abuse content; in 2019 this figure was just 0.1%.</p><p>UK police have existing powers
under section 72 and Schedule 2 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 which provides for
extra-territorial jurisdiction in relation to certain offences under the 2003 Act
where the victim is under the age of 18 years old. We continue to look at what more
we can do with our international partners giving due consideration to the findings
of the “Children Outside the UK report’ published by the Independent Inquiry on Child
Sexual Abuse in January 2020.</p>
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