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G8 paedophile hunt goes hi-tech
16/06/2005 21:18 - (SA)
London - Interior and justice ministers from the Group of Eight nations meeting in Britain on Thursday backed a British proposal for a new global system to combat people smuggling, Home Secretary Charles Clarke said.
Clarke also expected his G8 counterparts to back a new international database to catch paedophiles.
The Human Smuggling and Trafficking Message System (HST) discussed in the northern English city of Sheffield will be based on an existing scheme which gathers police data on global drug seizures.
"Our G8 colleagues endorsed the system and will formally establish that to ensure that we have global use of the system," Clarke said.
He said he hoped to make further progress on issues including biometric passports.
Under the proposals for the HST system, law enforcers would be asked to send a secure e-mail to Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France each time they uncover a case of human trafficking or a linked crime such as forged passports.
The information would then be forwarded to other countries, used to compile a weekly bulletin and analysed to spot trends or links between cases.
A Home Office spokesman said Britain hoped to win firm backing from the G8 by the end of the British presidency in December.
It could then be rolled out to all 182 countries which are members of Interpol.
A pilot scheme for the HST system went live between Britain and Norway at the end of last month, Clarke said.
Law enforcers in Britain who uncover people trafficking cases send a report to the National Criminal Intelligence Service, which then forwards reports to Interpol.
If agreement is reached, law enforcers would report on dates and locations of people smuggling crimes, trafficking routes and the type of transport used.
They would also detail the type of concealment used by the criminals and other relevant details, the Home Office spokesman said.
- SAPA
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