October 2014

ECIS is a core committee member of The International Task Force on Child Protection,
established in April 2014. The task force met in Leiden at the CIS offices on Tuesday, 30
September, and we feel it important to share with you an overview of that meeting as a means
of knowing where the task force is in its work on behalf of all the children in our schools
around the world. This paper is meant to serve as a brief only.
We listened to and interacted with representatives from the Netherlands Ministry of Security
and Dutch National Police, the US Marshals Service (US Department of Justice), the US
Department of State, and the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. We
learned what work has been done on combatting transnational child sex offenders; the mindset and behavioural characteristics of sex offenders; and what role(s) international schools
have (or can have) insofar as the reporting of incidents is concerned.
This issue is prevalent in all parts of the world, and it is happening constantly. For instance,
on two occasions we were shown software that tracks file transfers of 100 images or more
occurring in different countries, all in real-time or just over the past hour. The volume and
rapidity of transfers was sobering.
Following is a synopsis of what was discussed.
Statistics of Interest
89 countries (of 196 polled) have no legislation on child pornography
52 countries do not define it
18 countries do not provide for computer-facilitated offences
33 countries do not classify the possession of child pornography as a crime
89% of cases involve mobile technologies
Challenges
Incidents are not isolated; they occur frequently
Combatting these incidents is challenging, due to different laws (or the lack thereof) in
different countries, different statues of limitation, capacity of legal agencies to engage
these incidents, and cultural differences toward the issue in general
Transnational offenders jump from country to country in order to abuse
Transnational offenders seek out environments with a high concentration of children and
seek the weak spots in the system
Offenders are not one homogenous group not one age, not one nationality, not one
background, and they all are highly mobile
The process of grooming a child is done over time, and the pattern can be difficult to
identify

October 2014

Toward Solutions
Create awareness in international school communities
o create a culture of openness to talk about it among faculty/staff
o training for faculty and staff on appropriate boundaries with children; should be
country-specific; delivered by or in coordination with expert in the field who is
conversant on the latest empirical research
o training for faculty and staff on recognising signs of abuse and how to report it within a
school context
o training should be based on empirical literature and 'best practices,' could be countryspecific, should be delivered by (or in cooperation with) expert in the field who is
familiar with extant research. At least one subcommittee will compile a list of speakers
to share among schools and associations.
o be very wary about offering training from someone who comes from the point of view
of experience because they've been a victim; there is a strong opportunity for bias and
inaccuracies
o introduce awareness into curriculum so that children become aware
o potential offenders need to know that schools are serious about it, from a
communications perspective (website, etc.)
Engage off-sheet references as part of the hiring process
Report if you see signs of abuse or suspected abuse; each school must identify the best
reporting mechanism, especially as it relates to the laws and culture of the location. If not
sure where to report, visit www.missingkids.com and click on the button labelled
REPORT IT, which includes the ability to report on child abuse. This organisation will
liaise with the appropriate international organisation or government, if such a relationship
exists with MissingKids. There is not one centralised place to go in order to report, but this
is a good resource and a good point of contact.
Interpol is working on putting into place an International Certificate of Character to be
used worldwide, to be announced/released in the months ahead.
Establish a comprehensive child protection policy for your school and promote it. The
policy will include community resources and response procedures.
Black list creation could be useful, but it calls for much care and vigilance, as these lists
tend to contain offenders as well as suspects
Put in place a Follow-Up Care policy/procedure -- if incidents have happened, follow up
with children and staff in order to handle the emotions
If a school has a relationship with a US Embassy, this person's advice is to reach out to the
RSO (regional security officer) first before contacting anyone else (including local law
enforcement, etc.). The reason behind this direction is that the RSO has contacts in the
community and can help to make things happen more quickly; also, the RSO knows the
cultural situation and can advise whether a potential communication with a
group/authority would be positive or deleterious.

October 2014

Next Steps from Subcommittees

1. School Evaluation Committee
Will be working to identify generic policy language, to be adapted by individual schools as
their location/circumstances warrant, for the following areas (not meant to be exhaustive): (1)
values statement for schools concerning the rights of a child; (2) a code of conduct to guide
interactions between adults and children; (3) standards relating to child protection education
taught within the curriculum; (4) indicators related to governance and leadership
responsibility for child safety or duty of care; (5) formal procedures for criminal background
checks; (6) formal procedures to obtain references for prospective and existing faculty and
staff; (7) specific requirements for schools with boarding facilities related to child protection
policies; (8) creating and adopting a definition of what is meant by sexual, physical or
emotional abuse; (9) requirements for schools to have formal policy on what actions to take if
abuse is suspected or disclosed; (10) a code of conduct between adults and children; (11)
requirements for professional training on child abuse prevention
2. School Recruitment Committee
Will be working to identify recommendations for shared best practice in the following areas:
(1) reference checks, (2) identity verification of referees, (3) credential verification, (4)
internet checks, (5) police checks, (6) checking offender registries
3. School Policies and Resources Committee
Will be working to identify recommendations for policies and procedures to have in place to
deal with situations that might arise, as well as to make things difficult for paedophiles in
international schools. As part of that effort, this group will examine trust issues between
schools and local governments and agencies, specifically as it relates to protecting faculty
from false accusations as well as giving credence to any accusations that may arise; an
important balance. One of the greatest findings to-date of this committee was the notion of
boundaries between faculty and students: without training in this area, faculty are unsure
about whether something is truly appropriate, which may lead them not to bring forward a
concern. The issue was also raised of whether a centralised organisation might offer Directors
& Officers Insurance that would cover leadership in all kinds of international schools.
Overall, what we need to do as a community of international schools is to create a system of
walls (multiple measures) that an offender (or would-be offender) would have to cross,
such that one of the measures will result in stopping the potential act from occurring.
The committees will now undertake their next lines of inquiry and report back to the core
committee as they accomplish their goals. The core committee members will participate in a
panel at the AAIE conference in February. Each membership association looks to share
information on the task forces work in its conference(s).

October 2014

What is ECIS doing to help schools, right now?

1. We have created a section on our website to share information about the Task Forces
activity.
2. November: at the November conference, we will offer a session on boundaries
training, and we expect to produce a video on boundaries training by the end of
January. It will be shared with members, with the thought that members can show it
in their schools.
3. April: We will provide another boundaries training session at the April conference, as
well as incorporate several sessions that treat areas related to the larger issue, such as
crisis communications (among others).