Stresses the need for a more coordinated approach to finding missing children in the EU; calls on the Member States to increase police and judicial cooperation in cross-border cases involving missing children and to develop hotlines to search for missing children and support victims of child abuse; calls on the Member States to facilitate the smooth accession of Morocco, Singapore, the Russian Federation, Albania, Andorra, Seychelles, Gabon and Armenia to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Normally when either Vegreville receives a case in which they have dependent children of refugees who are in Haiti or Mississauga has a parent or a spouse sponsorship, all of that gets sent to Port-au-Prince in order to open the file and do the work to get to the interview stage.

The Commission will, in 2006, when evaluating the implementation of the Council Framework Decisions on combating trafficking in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, focus in its evaluation reports on the need for further strengthening of legal framework specifically addressing child trafficking and related offences, in particular coercing children into prostitution or engaging in sexual activities with child prostitutes, and where necessary submit appropriate proposals.

* There is a decrease in the number of proposals concerning children and young people (28% compared to 35% in 2000). This can be understood by two factors: i) the call gave the possibility to specifically submit proposals for topics related to child sexual exploitation and paedophilia under the B5-804 budget line and ii) probably quite a number of organisations were busy preparing for both the "2nd World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children" in Yokohama in December 2001 and for the postponed UN Special Session on Children scheduled for September 2001, leaving them little time to prepare and submit new proposals.

Normally, as my honourable colleagues know, I address issues related to children from the point of view of their rights as described in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Honourable senators, I thank the committee for the opportunity to brief you on how Canada is a leader in issues involving children and how our government's efforts prevent the incidence of international child abduction and contribute to the resolution of cases involving Canadian children.