EU ministers discuss child protection measures

Oct 2, 2007, 9:37 GMT

Lisbon - EU justice ministers met in Lisbon Tuesday to discuss ways to better protect children who fall victim of trafficking, sexual abuse or cross-border custody disputes.

The case of Madeleine McCann, the British four-year-old who went missing nearly five months ago during a family holiday in southern Portugal, also reverberated in Lisbon, where ministers talked about setting up an EU-wide Child Alert system.

This would involve the police in one country alerting their counterparts in the other 26 member states about the disappearance of a minor and publishing their photographs on an EU website.

Not all ministers are convinced about the need to adopt this initiative, however.

Some, like German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries, questioned its usefulness and wondered whether sending out too many alerts might not end up being counterproductive.

'I would not be in favour of publishing in Denmark or Sweden the photograph of a child that has gone missing in southern Italy,' Zypries told reporters.

Her Dutch colleague, Ernst Hirsch Ballin, said he would prefer only being informed about children gone missing in neighbouring countries rather than in far-away places like Latvia.

Scores of children go missing each week in the EU, but most cases are resolved within a couple of days, officials noted.

Ways to crack down on paedophile websites and on how to deal with disputed child custodies involving parents living in different member states were also on the agenda.