AS incidents of child sexual exploitation and abuse soar, the National Crime Agency (NCA) in conjunction with the British Embassy on Friday launched a tool to combat such occurrences in Tanzania executed by Britons who seek direct contact with children through employment.
The tool dubbed International Child Protection Certificate (ICPC) has been developed to target British nationals or people who have resided in the UK who may be seeking to travel and work overseas to gain access to vulnerable children for the purpose of harming them.
ICPC aims to provide reassurance that staff employed in schools, charities, voluntary and religious organisations do not have a UK criminal record that makes them unsuitable to work with children.
British High Commissioner to Tanzania Ms Sarah Cooke said in Dar es Salaam that ICPC involves identifying local and international sex offenders operating in the countries in which they work.
“It also involves protecting children from exploitation online, a rapidly growing threat as technological change allows criminals to share indecent images of children,” she noted.
Ms Cooke further said child sexual exploitation and abuse is a very sensitive subject which can be difficult to talk about in countries such as Tanzania.
“But we must address the matter. We are now working with the Tanzanian authorities to tackle such affairs, by collaborating, sharing information and intelligence, we can stop local and international sex offenders using Tanzania as a safe haven to commit abuse,”she remarked.
