International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children

The International Centre of Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) is a global organisation working in the area of eradicating child abduction, sexual abuse, and exploitation. The centre provides support, training, and expertise to governments, law enforcement agencies, policymakers, industry, and civil society organisations to make the world a safer place for all children.

Specific activities in which ICMEC is involved include: establishing global resources to find missing children and prevent child sexual exploitation; promoting the creation of operational centers worldwide based on a public-private partnership model; building an international network to disseminate images of and information about missing and exploited children; providing training to law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, legal professionals, nongovernmental organisations, and government officials; and proposing changes in laws, treaties, and systems to protect children worldwide.

The centre also works on eradicating child pornography from the Internet. In its regularly updated research on ‘Child Pornography: Model Legislation & Global Review’, ICMEC analyses national legislations in the area of child pornography, with a focus on issues such as: the criminalisation of computer‐facilitated offenses; any obligations imposed on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to report suspected child pornography to law enforcement or to some other agency; and any obligations for ISPs to develop and implement data retention and preservation provisions. In addition, the centre, together with the US National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, manages the US Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography, whose aim is to create a hostile environment on the Internet for those who seek to profit from the sexual exploitation of children. In a similar maner, the centre is also involved in the Asia-Pacific Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography, whose aim is to ight against the online sale and dissemination of child sexual exploitation materials.