Fax: (0034) 91 7400207
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E-mail: contacto@protegeles.com
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Past and objectives
PROTEGELES is a non-profit organisation that comes up as an organisation in 2002, although our hotline against child pornography has been working since October 2001. Our work as a hotline on the internet is mainly focused on these two objectives:
1º. To provide the Spanish Law Enforcement Units (Policía and Guardia Civil) with as many truthful reports of illegal content on Internet as possible so that they can eliminate child pornography webpages and locate and prosecute their authors.
Protegeles does not only check and make a follow-up of the reports that we receive through our page, we also carry out pro-active searches, that is to say, that Protegeles’ staff check all received reports on daily basis and, at the same time, they actively search the net for illegal content. This way of working is proving to be very effective for our organisation: just between 2003 and 2004, the reports that we checked and passed to the police made possible seven police operations that resulted in many paedophiles arrested worldwide. Thanks to our way of working, PROTEGELES is awarded with high recognition not only by the Spanish Law Enforcement Units but also by the Spanish Child Ombudsperson and other important official institutions. PROTEGELES also plays an especially active role within the INHOPE, the International Association of Helplines (www.inhope.org), being one of our workres a member of its Directing Board since March 2003.
2º. To carry out campaigns, preventive work and other kind of actions to improve children’s safety on the Internet. PROTEGELES has carried out many studies related to children’s safety and habits on the use of Internet, and all of them have been published by the Spanish Ombudsperson. Moreover, these studies are at the basis of most of our preventive campaigns, as it is detailed in this dossier.
PROTEGELES also takes part in the edition of different materials which are very appreciated among the educational community because of their high quality, such as our magazine “Conectate” (Get connected). We also participate in all campaigns, round tables and forums about children’s safety on Internet and against child pornography that are organised in Spain.
Nowadays, following a European Commission requirement, PROTEGELES has enlarged its field of action and it is also working to tackle other kind of illegal content on the Internet: racism or xenophobia, terrorism defence and support and drug trafficking. But the field of action of the association is continuously being enlarged as we find harmful contents for children, such as the pro-ANA and pro-MIA pages. These are pages devoted to the promotion and spreading of anorexia and bulimia as though they were “freely chosen ways of life”.
Last but not least, PROTEGELES works to raise social awareness against paedophilia and the increase of child pornography on the Internet. For this reason, it is very important for us to count on the media collaboration in our campaigns. PROTEGELES plays a very important role by bringing together most of the actors that have something to say in this field: schools, students’ parents associations, internet users, public institutions, police forces and Internet Service Providers (ISP). By working with all these actors and bringing them together, we hope that we all work in the same direction and always keeping in mind our final aim: to make Internet a safer place for children, which will undoubtedly improve children’s general safety.
