OSCE Programme Office in Astana supports regional training seminar on countering sexual crimes against children in cyberspace

An OSCE-supported five-day training seminar on countering sexual crimes against children in cyberspace concluded on 8 December 2017 in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

The event was co-organized by the OSCE Programme Office in Astana, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for Central Asia, and the International Centre for Mission and Exploited Children with financial support from the Kingdom of Norway.

Some 20 government officials representing the Interior Ministries, National Security Committees and the Prosecutor General’s Offices of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan were provided with a basic understanding of issues related to online sexual exploitation of children and the challenges in this field for law enforcement worldwide.

Led by experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (US), the Queensland Police Service (Australia), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the US Marshals Service and UNODC as well as representatives from academia and the non-governmental sector, the seminar aimed to help officials understand the different components important to conducting online investigations into crimes related to child sexual exploitation. The presenters focused on evidence collection, investigating online ads, metadata, offender profiling, encryption, child victim identification, undercover investigations, predatory grooming techniques and several case studies from Central Asia.

The seminar aimed to equip officials with the skills needed  to respond to criminal threats in the context of exploitation of children in cyberspace and to co-operate with other law enforcement agencies in the region and globally. The seminar is part of the OSCE Programme Office’s activities in combating transnational threats and preventing the abuse of the Internet for criminal purposes.