Maud de Boer-Buquicchio

Maud de Boer-Buquicchio (born December 28, 1944) is a Dutch jurist and former UN Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. She served as Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe from 2002 and retired from the post in 2012 and was succeeded by Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni.

Maud de Boer-Buquicchio
Born (1944-12-28) December 28, 1944
Hoensbroek, Netherlands
Education1963–1965: French language and literature studies
1965–1969: Law studies
Alma materLeiden University
OccupationFormer Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography; Former Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe
Board member ofInternational Centre for Missing & Exploited Children
Spouse(s)Gianni Buquicchio

De Boer-Buquicchio was born in Hoensbroek, Netherlands, and studied French and French literature, and later law at Leiden University. She specialized in international relations and labor law, obtaining her degree in 1969 with a thesis on the equality of treatment between men and women under European Community law.[1]

De Boer-Buquicchio joined the Council of Europe in 1969, and joined the legal Secretariat of the European Commission of Human Rights. She later worked in a variety of positions in the Council of Europe system, including in the private office of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe and as Deputy Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights. She was elected Deputy Secretary General in 2002, and re-elected in 2007.[2]

Philanthropy
De Boer-Buquicchio with the Board of Directors of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children

De Boer-Buquicchio is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), a global nonprofit organization that combats child sexual exploitation, child pornography, and child abduction.[3]

She was elected President of Missing Children Europe in 2013, a position she took over from former Advocate General at the European Court of Justice, Sir Francis Jacobs.

Personal life

De Boer-Buquicchio is married and has three sons.[2]

Press conference at Tokyo

On 8 May, 2014, De Boer-Buquicchio was appointed Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.[4] From 12 to 18 May the following year she visited Armenia to investigate violence against children.[5].

From 19 to 26 October 2015, De Boer-Buquicchio traveled around Japan (Tōkyō, Ōsaka, Kawanishi and Naha) for eight days to investigate child trade, sexual exploitation, production of child pornography etc.,[6] and she held a press conference at Japan National Press Club in Tokyo on 26 October[Notes 1] to report the results.[Notes 2]

Tarō Yamada, then a member of the Japanese House of Councillors,[10] claimed that De Boer-Buquicchio's statements contained many prejudices, mistakes and misunderstandings:[11]

1. Around thirty [or thirteen] percent of Japanese school girls engage in enjo kōsai (compensated dating).
In local surveys, 4-5% of responding female high school students said they had engaged in enjo kōsai.[12]
2. The Japanese courts seldom find people violating child pornography laws guilty.
From 2013 to 2015, 526 people indicted for violation of child pornography law were found guilty and only one acquitted.[13]
3. The Japanese Child pornography laws (Act on Regulation and Punishment of Acts Relating to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, and the Protection of Children etc.) stipulates light punishments for criminals. Even though they were judged to be guilty the criminals were only punished with a fine in most cases.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (MOFA), Japanese child pornography laws are not different from those in European countries or USA etc. from the point of view of gravity of punishments.[13] Also, Japanese court statistics indicate that about 95 percent of those found to have broken child pornography laws were sentenced to penal servitude.[13]
4. Japanese police hesitate to investigate cases when the victims do not file police reports.
Yamada inquired whether her allegation was true for the National Police Agency, which completely denied it officially.[14]
5. In Okinawa prefecture, if girls have to run away from home because of family breakdown they have no way to earn money but prostitution.
No evidence was presented to support this claim.[14]

De Boer-Buquicchio said that she had been misheard by the translator; she had said "thirteen percent" and the translator had heard "thirty percent".[15] On 2 November 2015, MOFA issued a complaint to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) over De Boer-Buquicchio's comment of 26 October, and asked her to disclose objective data for the claim of thirteen percent.[16] MOFA asked OHCHR to disclose the data from which De Boer-Buquicchio alleged 13%.[17][18]on 7 November 2015.

On 11 November 2015 MOFA received a letter from De Boer-Buquicchios, in which she admitted that there were no objective data supporting the 13% figure, and effectively withdrew her comments.[19][17][12]

Report on surrogacy

In a report to the UN General Assembly released in September 2019, De Boer-Buquicchio urged states to ratify surrogacy agreements contracted abroad, claiming that "a strict interpretation of the notion of the sale or trafficking of children as a criminal offence can have dire consequences". She also urged that homosexual couples should be allowed to use surrogacy in order to become parents.[20]

Notes
  1. The press conference can be watched on YouTube[7] as of 2019.
  2. De Boer-Buquicchio's statements and questions-and-answers between her and journalists can also be read in the urls [8] and [9](in Japanese).
gollark: Among other things.
gollark: If we make it a *law* that the API does that, it *cannot* not do that, since that would be illegal.
gollark: We should legally require all this sort of API to take a `term` object as input.
gollark: Just do `local i`, that should declare it.
gollark: I assumed you did. You probably should have.

References
  1. "Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, Deputy Secretary General : Biography". The Council of Europe. Archived from the original on 2009-07-23. Retrieved 2009-07-23.
  2. "Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, Deputy Secretary General : Curriculum Vitae". The Council of Europe. Archived from the original on 2009-07-23. Retrieved 2009-07-23.
  3. "ICMEC Board Members". icmec.org. Archived from the original on 2015-07-03.
  4. "Biography of the Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, Ms Maud de Boer-Buquicchio". Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  5. "United Nations in Armenia Making the invisible visible – UN expert's call". Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  6. "United Nations Information Centre メディア・アドバイザリー：児童の性的搾取の状況　国連の人権専門家、日本視察を開始（10月19日－26日）". Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  7. "マオド・ド・ブーア＝ブキッキオ 国連 児童の性的搾取に関する特別報告者　会見　2015.10.26". Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  8. "国連児童の性的搾取に関する特別報告者会見 #1/2 【全文】「女子学生の3割は援交をやっている」国連特別報告者・ブキッキオ氏が訪日会見 2015年10月26日". Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  9. "国連児童の性的搾取に関する特別報告者会見 #2/2 日本の量刑は軽すぎる？児童ポルノ規制に関する先進国との比較状況 2015年10月26日". Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  10. 山田太郎 (2016). 「表現の自由」の守り方. 星海社. pp. 129–130. ISBN 978-4-06-138586-3.
  11. Yamada Tarō no sanchanneru (山田太郎のさんちゃんねる), uploaded to Niconico on 20 January 2016.
  12. "U.N. official backtracks on Japan schoolgirl 'compensated dating' claim". The Japan Times. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  13. "漫画・アニメ規制派の餌食になっていた--ブキッキオ氏の援交発言撤回の裏側". Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  14. 山田太郎 (2016). 「表現の自由」の守り方. 星海社. ISBN 978-4-06-138586-3., p. 133.
  15. "Clarification of the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography following her end-of-mission press conference in Japan". www.ohchr.org. Retrieved 15 January 2017.
  16. "Demarche to the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography". Retrieved 2019-09-05.
  17. "Minutes of Japanese House of Councillors on 18 Jan., 2016". Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  18. "U.N. official's claim that 13% of Japanese girls engage in 'compensated dating' angers government". The Japan Times. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  19. 山田太郎 (2016). 「表現の自由」の守り方. 星海社. ISBN 978-4-06-138586-3., p.132.
  20. Stefano Generrini, "UN Envoy Supports Buying and Selling of Children", Friday Fax, Center for Family and Human Rights, 12 September 2019.
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