World Congress on Child Dignity in the Digital World
During an extraordinary opportunity to spread NCOSE’s message on a global scale, our President Patrick Trueman traveled to Rome for the World Congress on Child Dignity in the Digital World on October 6. The purpose of the Congress was to recognize that there is an unprecedented attack of sexual exploitation on children and to propose solutions to protect them. 120 leaders from around the world attended the Congress, providing their unique perspectives but working toward the common goal of protecting children.
Declaration of Rome
The Congress produced a “Declaration of Rome,” which contains 13 calls to action world leaders should adopt to better protect children from the pervasive harms of Internet pornography. Among them, the Declaration calls on the Parliaments of the world to improve their laws to better protect children and hold those accountable who abuse and exploit children.
In addition, they ask that “leaders of technology companies commit to the development and implementation of new tools and technologies to attack the proliferation of sex abuse images on the Internet, and to interdict the redistribution of the images of identified child victims.”
Finally, they call on “government, private industry, and religious institutions to undertake a global awareness initiative to make citizens in every country more alert and aware regarding the abuse and sexual exploitation of children.”
Effectively Protecting Children
During the Congress, Mr. Trueman met with Pope Francis to discuss the harms of pornography to children. The Pope has been deeply concerned about this issue. During his remarks to the Congress, he stated, “We would seriously be deluding ourselves were we to think that a society where an abnormal consumption of Internet sex is rampant among adults could be capable of effectively protecting children.”
In a Facebook Live conversation with Covenant Eyes Founder and CEO Ron DeHaas, Mr. Trueman highlights this remark by the Pope, and emphasizes what NCOSE is doing to help end child sexual exploitation. “The conference was to talk about how we’re going to protect children, and the Pope took it even to a new level saying, ‘How do you expect to protect children if the society is so consumed with hardcore pornography consumption?'” Indeed, at NCOSE, we work to expose the connection between adult pornography and child sexual abuse.
To hear more about the Congress, watch Mr. Trueman’s interview with Covenant Eyes.
