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EU Strategy for a more effective fight against child sexual abuse

In “A new era for European Defence and Security”

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On 24 July 2020, the European Commission presented the EU strategy for a more effective fight against child sexual abuse for the period 2020-2025.

The new strategy aims to set out a comprehensive response to child sexual abuse, both in its online and offline form. The Council, at its meeting of 8 October 2019, and the  European Parliament, in its Resolution of 26 November 2019 on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - had urged for such a response.

The key actions to be taken are articulated along eight initiatives:

  1. Ensure complete implementation of current legislation, notably Directive 2011/93/EU on combating sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child pornography
  2. Ensure that EU legislation enables an effective response
  3. Identify legislative gaps, best practices and priority actions
  4. Strengthen law enforcement efforts at national and EU level
  5. Enable Member States to better protect children through prevention
  6. A European centre to prevent and counter child sexual abuse
  7. Galvanise industry efforts to ensure the protection of children in their products
  8. Improve protection of children globally through multi-stakeholder cooperation

As part of the strategy, the Commission submitted between 2020 and 2024 four legislative proposals. Two new pieces of legislation have already been adopted: a regulation aimed at strengthening Europol's mandate in the fight against child sexual abuse online, and an interim regulation, initially in force until August 2024 and in 2024 extended until 3 April 2026, allowing online communication service providers to continue to detect and report it on a voluntary basis, in derogation from rules set out in the ePrivacy Directive. A 2022 proposal on permanent rules to replace the interim regulation is still pending and has been carried over to the 10th term. The proposed regulation would make it mandatory for providers to detect, report and remove child sexual abuse material on their services. It also envisage the creation of a EU centre to counter and prevent child sexual abuse. Also carried over to the current term was the proposal for a revision of the Combating child sexual abuse Directive, published on 6 February 2024.  The revised rules expand the definitions of offences to include new forms of online child sexual abuse, and introduce higher penalties and more specific requirements for prevention and assistance to victims. Moreover, they set minimum statutes of limitations to effectively allow the victim to seek justice. 

To strengthen measures against all forms of violence, including online abuse, the Commission issued furthermore, on 23 April 2024, its Recommendation on integrated child protection systems. 

Other measures under the strategy include setting up an Innovation Hub and Lab within Europol to facilitate Member State access to technical tools and knowledge developed at EU level, building a prevention network at EU-level to facilitate the exchange of best practices.

The Commission will also continue promoting multi-stakeholder cooperation through the WePROTECT Global Alliance and plans to continue working with major internet companies in the fight against child sexual abuse online. Under the EU Internet Forum, it has launched an expert process with industry to map and preliminarily assess possible technical solutions to detect and report child sexual abuse in end-to-end encrypted electronic communications, and to address regulatory and operational challenges and opportunities in the fight against these crimes.

Magnus Brunner, the new Commissioner for Internal affairs and Migration, has been tasked to lead the work to better protect children against sexual abuse online and offline in the European Commission 2024-2029. He will, inter alia, be in charge of the two legislative files taken over from the previous term: the revision of the Combating child sexual abuse directive and the proposed regulation for permanent rules  for tech companies to detect, report and remove online child sexual abuse material.

For detailed information on the individual proposals, please refer to the concerning carriages in the same train.

References:

See also our related files in the same train:

  • Legislative train on the Proposal for a Regulation on a temporary derogation from certain provisions of the e-Privacy Directive for the purpose of combating child sexual abuse online (e-Privacy Directive: Derogation to combat child sexual abuse)
  • Legislative train on New legislation to fight child sexual abuse online (Combating child sexual abuse online)
  • Legislative train on the strengthening of Europol's mandate
  • Legislative train on the Proposal for a revision of the combating child sexual abuse Directive
  • Legislative train on integrated child protection systems

Further reading:

Author: Yanis Stefanou, Members' Research Service, legislative-train@europarl.europa.eu

As of 20/02/2026.