On 25 May 2000, acting without a vote, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, which requires State Parties to prohibit these activities. Each State party is required to ensure the full coverage of certain acts and activities under its criminal or penal law, whether the offences are committed domestically or transnationally, or on an individual or organized basis. The offences include, among other things, offering, delivering or accepting a child for the purpose of sexual exploitation, transfer of its organs for profit, or its engagement in forced labor, and producing, distributing, disseminating, or possessing child pornography.  

The Optional Protocol requires State Parties to prohibit the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.  

According to the Optional Protocol, “sale of children” is any act or transaction whereby a child is transferred by any person or group to another for remuneration or any other consideration. “Child prostitution” means the use of a child in sexual activities for remuneration or any other form of consideration. “Child pornography” is any representation, by whatever means, of a child engaged in real or simulated explicit sexual activities or any representation of a child’s sexual parts for primarily sexual purposes.  

Each State Party is also required to ensure the full coverage of certain acts and activities under its criminal or penal law, whether the offences are committed domestically or transnationally, or on an individual or organized basis.  The offences include: offering, delivering or accepting, by whatever means, a child for the purpose of sexual exploitation of the child, transfer of its organs for profit, or its engagement in forced labor; and improperly inducing consent, as an intermediary, for the adoption of a child in violation of the applicable international legal instruments on adoption. Other offences include offering, obtaining, procuring or providing a child for child prostitution; and producing, distributing, disseminating, importing, exporting, offering, selling or possessing child pornography for the above purposes.  

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