Winnipeg – Beyond Borders, Canada’s global voice against child sexual exploitation, announced the nominees in its annual, national, bilingual media awards today. The awards program, in its seventh year, honours journalists and documentary makers for exceptional coverage of issues related to child sexual exploitation. “The media play an important role in terms of the work that Beyond Borders does,” states event co-chair, Deborah Zanke. “Journalists and documentary makers help to raise awareness, point out areas of the justice and social services system that aren’t working to protect children and motivate the public and politicians to take action on issues related to the sexual abuse of children.” The 2009 nominees are as follows: English Print Award Tim Petruk - Kamloops This Week, Targeting Teens within Seconds. February 22, 2009. Jana Pruden - Regina Leader-Post, Pedophile and Predator: The Darren Philpott Story (series), November 2008. Sandie Benitah - CTV.CA, Sex tourism and Canada’s weak response. August 2, 2009. Sue Montgomery - The Gazette, Brothers stand accused; Dark side of the ‘chaste’ life; Ruined lives of victims; Legal motion claims sex abuse. December 2008. Tamara Cherry - Toronto Sun, Human Trafficking: Canada’s secret shame (series). September/October 2008. Tamara Cherry - Toronto Sun, Tina: Slave to a pimp (series), February 2009. Lindor Reynolds - Winnipeg Free Press, “Body of Work” on issues related to sexual exploitation between September 1, 2008 and August 31, 2009. French Print Award – No submissions English Electronic Award Robin Benger - Cogent/Benger Productions Inc., CBC Television, Porndemic: Sex in the Digital Age. April 2, 2009. Sharlene Azam - Reluctant Hero Productions, SBS Netherlands, Oral Sex is the New Goodnight Kiss, January 2009. Brett Mitchell, Victor Malarek, Patti-Ann Finlay -CTV W-Five, Trail of a Sex Tourist, March 2009. Arthur Holbrook - CBC- The Lens, My Son the Pornographer, February 2009. French Electronic Award Marquise Lepage - Cenéma ONF (Montreal), Des billes, des ballons et des garcons, 4 semtembre, 2008. Myriam Fimbry - Radio-Canada - Première chaine, radio, Abus sexuels chez les jeunes enfants: le défi de la preuve, 12 février 2009. English Student Award Ben Choy & Vanessa Ybarra - British Columbia Institute of Technology, Sex and the City. 2009 (Electronic) Jillian Kestler-D’Amours - Concordia University - Behind the velvet curtain. 2009 (Print) Megan Martin - Concordia University, Human rights school. June 2009 (Published in the Montreal Gazette). Lindsay Lafreniere - Concordia University, Working to stop child prostitution in Cambodia. (Print). French Student Award – No submissions Zanke is pleased with the calibre of nominations and the range of topics covered but is disappointed that in spite of the efforts to reach out to the French journalism community, there are no nominations in the French Print or French Student category this year. The awards ceremony honouring the winners will take place in Winnipeg on November 20 (Universal Children’s Day). More information about the awards can be found at www.beyondborders.org and on Facebook under “Beyond Borders Media Awards”. About Beyond Borders Beyond Borders is a national non-profit organization that advances the rights of children to be free from sexual exploitation. It is an affiliate of ECPAT International (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) operating in 75 countries around the world. Contact: Deborah Zanke – (204) 880-4509

Online Training for NGOs on Strategies for Safe ICTs From June 16th to July 24th our partners in Argentina, Chicos.net implemented the online course “Building Strategies to Protect Children’s Rights through a Responsible Use of New Information and Communication Technologies”. This free-of-charge course for NGOs, the first of its kind in Latin America, is aimed at promoting initiatives related to the protection of children in their use of ICTs building the capacity of the participants in understanding how violence occurs in cyberspace and to encourage their involvement in projects aimed at preventing sexual violence through ICTs. Throughout six weeks, 243 participants from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Venezuela, Paraguay, Uruguay and Spain actively participated of the course. Participants learned about the links between new technologies and violence from a rights perspective and also reflected on the impact teachers, parents and peers have on shaping responsible users of ICT. The course intends to promote the capacity of participants to analyze and create strategies for preventing risks in children’s interactions through Internet, cell phones and other devices. This opportunity also served as a networking platform to encourage collaboration between organizations to address this issue. Assignments consisted of guided surfing of the net, participation and exchange in discussion forums, analysis of problems and scenarios, production of lines of actions and conclusions, analysis of texts and audiovisual resources -including videos made by children about the subject- and design of a project. Experts in children and new technologies, such as the psychologist Sergio Balardini and the researcher Indra Klein, participated of the online forums, contributing their knowledge to the discussions.

On July 9, the Global Monitoring Report on the Status of Action against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Peru was launched in Lima. The launch was organised by ECPAT International with the support of the local NGO CHS Alternativo, and was attended by over 40 people from different organisations. The Report aims to establish a baseline of information on actions undertaken and the gaps that still exist in addressing the sexual exploitation of children in Peru. At the same time, the report is an excellent tool for civil society to support the implementation of fundamental actions related to the topic. At the launch, presentations displayed the different levels of actions and interventions from the State and civil society. Experts at the launch included Andrea Querol Lipcovich, Executive Director of Capital Humano y Social Alternativo; Marco Antonio Sotelo, Regional Associate of Americas; Roxana Dávila from the Direction of Children and Adolescents from the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs and Elvira Alvarez, representing the Legal System.

The Regional Contest TecnologiaSi-2009 is an initiative that is aimed at empowering children and youth who use ICTs to develop their critical thinking regarding the potential risks of interactions in cyberspace, the responsibilities we all have as users and possible recommendations to ensure all children can benefit from these technologies to the maximum. Through engaging young people in informing their peers on how to better protect themselves, we hope to positively change current practices of self-exposure. By helping them reflect on the role of family, school, governments and the ICT private sector, we hope youth will regain their right to call on these stakeholders to ensure cyberspace is a safe place for them to interact. The Contest "TecnologiaSi" has been piloted in Argentina in 2008 and throughout 3 months of implementation 50 videos were received from schools and youth groups from all around the country. After this success, Chicos.net, Save the Children Sweden and Google have sought a partnership with ECPAT International to replicate this initiative in 5 countries in Latin America. In September 2009, our ECPAT Groups and partners in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Paraguay will jointly launch the event and disseminate all related information in their countries. During the last quarter of 2009, adolescents from participating schools will be submitting their videos through Youtube to enter the contest. The winning videos at national level will be awarded at a press conference. They will automatically enter the regional contest from which the winning video will be reshot by a professional agency and broadcasted throughout the region.

On 16-18 June, a regional course for the prevention of sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism was carried out in Ecuador. The course aimed to train representatives from the tourism sector as resource persons for them to contribute to policy change and initiatives to prevent the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents in travel and tourism in their countries. The participants of the course included regional tourism authorities, private tourist sector and some NGOs from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Venezuela. Presentations were made on the Code of Conduct, its advantages, procedures, structure; examples of the Code implementation; commitments established by the Rio de Janeiro Declaration to combat child-sex tourism; and successful experiences and good practices from the private sector. ECPAT’s training toolkit on Child Safe Organisations, which was translated into Spanish thanks to the generous support of LACT, was used for the presentations and given to all participants in a CD when the course was completed.