Brussels, 18/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - Justice and Home Affairs Ministers of the Fifteen will attempt to reach a political agreement on 25 April on a framework-decision on combating the sexual exploitation of children and child pornography. The framework-decision is intended to align the definition and penalties by Member States for child-prostitution and pornography. Coreper was working Thursday evening to finalise the text. On the basis of this text, Member States will undertake to punish, as acts of sexual exploitation of children: forcing a child to prostitute him or herself or participate in pornographic recordings, the fact of recruiting a child for these acts, forcing (through threats, force or abuse of authority or influence) or remunerate a child for sexual activities. Also to be punished, as act relating to child pornography, the fact of producing, distributing, purchasing, or possessing pornographic material which includes children. These penalties must a priori also relate to virtual images of children or recordings of people aged over 18 portrayed as being children. But discussions were still going on Thursday evening within Coreper on as to what extent each Member State could decide not to implement penalties if the person who appears to be a child is aged over 18, if the person has the age of sexual consent, or if the image is virtual, on condition that the use of the recording is exclusively private. Italy insists on limiting the field of exemptions. It is expected that six or seven countries (United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Ireland, Greece, Portugal) will make a declaration indicating that they certainly will implement penalties for virtual images. The fact of inciting or abetting in committing these acts would be punished, and Member States should establish the responsibility of the moral person and provide for penalties. The framework-decision also provides for an alignment of penalties, of at least between 1 and 3 years for any act that comes under the decision, and at least 5 to 10 years for more serious acts: Thursday evening, Coreper was discussing implementation of these two levels of penalties to the different acts incriminated by the draft framework-decision.