2000 “Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography”
It was 1994 when the UN Human Rights Committee decided to establish a Working Group to study a draft Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which would contain measures necessary to eradicate child trafficking from the world. In 2000, the Working Group's final draft, consisting of a preamble and 17 articles, was adopted by the UN General Assembly as the “Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography.” It states that the main purposes of child trafficking are to engage in prostitution and other sex industries and child labor, to be the subject of child pornography, and to be a donor for illegal organ donation. The Protocol provides that States Parties shall prohibit the sale of children, child prostitution, and child pornography, and that when criminal acts such as child prostitution are committed, whether at home or abroad, they shall be fully subject to the criminal or penal laws and regulations of the State Party and may impose appropriate penalties for these crimes, taking into account their gravity It was stipulated that.
In Japan, the Law Concerning Regulation and Punishment of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, and the Protection of Children (the Child Prostitution and Child Pornography Law) was enacted in 1999, against the background that Japan had produced perpetrators of child prostitution in Southeast Asia at the 1994 World Conference and had also come under strong criticism from the international community as a production site for child pornography. “The Law for the Prohibition of Child Prostitution and Child Pornography” was enacted in 1999. In 2004, the revised Child Prostitution and Child Pornography Law and the revised Child Welfare Act were enacted, and in 2005, Japan ratified the Protocol to the Convention on the Protection of Children. In 2005, Japan ratified the Optional Protocol, and as of 2022, 178 countries are parties to the Optional Protocol. However, even in Japan today, the U.S. Department of State's “FY2022 Trafficking in Persons Report” points out that Japan “does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking in persons,” including labor exploitation of technical intern trainees, child labor and labor exploitation in the sex industry, and child prostitution trips by Japanese men to Asian countries. Some have pointed out that measures to combat trafficking in persons, including children, are inadequate.
The contents of this Optional Protocol are related to Articles 11, 21, 34, 35, 36, etc. in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.