Luxembourg Terminology Guidelines for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse

Communication is of critical importance in our efforts to respect, protect and implement the rights of the child. In order to make this communication with and between children, parents, governmental officials, professionals and volunteers working with or for children as effective as possible, we need to use terms and concepts that all these actors understand and consider respectful. Over the last decade, people working for the prevention and elimination of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse have had to deal with new terms like grooming, sexting, and live streaming of child sexual abuse. At the same time, terms like child prostitution and child pornography have been more and more criticized (including, at times, by the very victims of these heinous crimes) and increasingly replaced by alternative terms, considered less harmful or stigmatizing to the child. It was and is not clear if and how these novelties and changes in terminology should lead to different approaches or actions, and there has been a growing concern that changes to existing terms (especially established legal terms) might cause confusion or lack of understanding, and even hinder the effective prevention and elimination of child sexual exploitation, unless this change comes about in a joint and concerted manner by a broad set of child protection actors. At ECPAT’s initiative, an Interagency Working Group was established for the drafting of a set of Terminology Guidelines for the protection of children from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. The commitment and very valuable input of the members of the Working Group led to the adoption, in Luxembourg, of the Guidelines presented in this document (hence dubbed the “Luxembourg Guidelines”). The purpose of this document is to provide all individuals and agencies working for the prevention and elimination of all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children with guidance for the understanding and use of the different terms and concepts they may encounter in their work. Our hope is that the Guidelines will be widely disseminated and that all actors will familiarize themselves with the meaning and possible use of the terms and concepts presented in the Guidelines. We believe that by doing so they will contribute to a more effective protection of children from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse