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]

Career

United Nations Special Rapporteur

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]

Visit to Japan

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][7] and she held a press conference at Japan National Press Club in Tokyo on 26 October[Notes 1] to report the results.[Notes 2]

On 2 November 2015, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) issued a complaint to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) over De Boer-Buquicchio's comment of 26 October, which they quoted as saying that 13% of schoolgirls were involved in enjo kōsai ("compensated dating"), and asked her to disclose the source for the claim of 13%.[11][12]

In response, the OHCHR released a clarification from the Special Rapporteur acknowledging that she had not received an official statistic concerning this matter while in Japan and explaining that the 13% figure was an estimate found in open sources that was mentioned – thanks to a mistranslation, as 30% – to highlight a phenomenon that must be urgently tackled.[13]

Following the issuing of a press release[14] by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 9 November in which it requested the withdrawal of the remark and that the report be based on objective data, she addressed on 10 November a letter to the Permanent Representative at the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations in which she stated that she would not refer to this estimate in her Report to the UN Human Rights Council.[15][16]

The final report was presented to the UN Human Rights Council in New York on 3 March 2016.[17][18]

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.[19]

Notes
  1. The press conference can be watched on YouTube[8] as of 2019.
  2. De Boer-Buquicchio's statements and questions-and-answers between her and journalists can also be read in the urls [9] and [10](in Japanese).

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. https://www.unic.or.jp/news_press/info/16228/?lang=en
  7. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/27/japan-urged-to-ban-manga-child-abuse-images
  8. "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.
  9. "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.
  10. "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.
  11. "U.N. official's claim that 13% of Japanese girls engage in 'compensated dating' angers government". The Japan Times. 10 November 2015. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  12. "Japan demands UN expert retract remarks on 'compensated dating'". BBC. 10 November 2015. Retrieved 2 February 2021.
  13. "Clarification of the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography following her end-of-mission press conference in Japan", OHCHR, 2 November 2015.
  14. "Demarche to the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography", MOFA, 9 November 2015.
  15. "Reply from the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography", MOFA, 11 November 2015.
  16. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2015/12/27/paid-dating-with-teenage-students-thriving-in-japan
  17. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/846977
  18. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/03/09/national/social-issues/u-n-report-urges-japan-ban-sexual-exploitation-schoolgirls/
  19. 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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