G8 ministers call for tougher fight against child porn

Interior and justice ministers of the G8 countries called on Saturday for more aggressive measures to fight the "heinous crime" of sexual exploitation of children.

Interior and justice ministers of the G8 countries called on Saturday for more aggressive measures to fight the "heinous crime" of sexual exploitation of children.

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The ministers, wrapping up three days of talks near Rome, condemned all forms of exploitation including stopping and prosecuting "travelling sex offenders" and child pornography on the Internet.

"Sexual exploitation of children, besides being a heinous crime, is a gross violation of basic human rights," the ministers said in a statement.

While hailing G8 initiatives and cooperation in this area, they pointed to considering other "aggressive measures" such as a blacklist of websites containing child pornography and blocking navigation to paedophile sites.

"The blacklist could be run by some international organisations," the ministers' statement said, stressing other cross-border cooperation such as "closely coordinating online undercover investigations and other international law enforcement operations."

The top justice officials from the Group of Eight countries -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- stressed the importance of combatting child pornography online and offline by issuing a separate declaration at the end of their talks, entitled "The Risk to Children Posed By Child Pornography Offenders."

"The continuous advances in technology offer more scope for improving international cooperation in this field, especially in regulatory and operational terms," their statement said.