The Bar Council's International Malaysia Law Conference 2016 ("IMLC 2016") was held at The Royale Chulan Kuala Lumpur from 21 to 23 Sept 2016.
by Aneera Chowdhury
International Law and Human Rights
10:00 – 11:15 am | 23 Sept 2016 (Friday) | Taming Sari 3
In this digital age, we place great reliance on the Internet although it remains a largely unregulated territory.
Children of the 21st–century learn and teach themselves the ways of the world from the World Wide Web; it has become central to their society. Yet the Web — which remains largely accessible to children — is also a dark place, where modern–day predators lurk.
The sexual exploitation of children has achieved new levels of heinousness, due to affordable technology, secure payment methods and easy online access. The circulation and streaming of live child sexual abuse material is rife. There is a global demand for children on webcams. Online, children are being transacted or groomed.
Only recently, shockwaves reverberated through Malaysia when the acts of the criminal paedophile, Richard Huckle, came to light. He bragged online: “Impoverished kids are definitely much easier to seduce than middle–class Western kids.” Huckle abused up to 200 children, and possessed more than 20,000 indecent pictures and videos of children, which he shared with others on a hidden website.
The session at IMLC 2016 will venture into this arena of concern, with consideration of trigger factors in child abuse, recidivism, the ASEAN response to this matter, and the non–legal measures available to tackle this pervasive problem.
Alan Davis teaches criminal law at Monash University, Australia, and is completing a doctorate examining the compliance of Australian youth restorative justice programmes with child rights. He was called to the Bar at Middle Temple in 2007.
Marianne Clark–Hattingh assumed leadership of the United Nations Children’s Fund (“UNICEF”) Malaysia’s country office in January 2016. She has extensive knowledge in child protection, change management and social policy development.
Srividhya Ganapathy was admitted to the Malaysian Bar in 1996, and practises in family law, civil litigation and conveyancing. A child rights trainer, she is a Co–Chairperson of the Bar Council Child Rights Committee (“CRC”).
The moderator, Ajeet Kaur, was called to the Malaysian Bar in 1996 and is also a Co–Chairperson of CRC. She was part of the inaugural group of participants for a training of trainers for ethical representation of children in conflict with the law, organised by UNICEF.
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