Media Censorship and the Truth: How to Expose Systemic Crimes Against Children

A Congress for Child Protection

The First International Congress “Together in Child Protection” was held on May 16, 2026, at Hotel Novella Uno in Novi Banovci, Belgrade, Serbia. Its stated objective was the establishment of a supranational structure to protect the rights of children and families. My presentation, “Media Censorship and the Truth: How to Expose Systemic Crimes Against Children,” appeared in the session on Institutional Response and International Cooperation. I presented among other distinguished contributors, including Amos Guiora (Professor of Law), Roelie Post (EU Whistleblower), Linda Carol Trotter (Founder and President), Sandi Dizdarević (Professor of Criminology and Criminal Psychology), Hermina Nedelescu (Neuroscientist), Goran Belojević (Professor of Medicine), Sreten Vujović (Academician), Marion Le Roy Dagen (Survivor-Advocate and Founder), Ana Pejić (Congress Organizer), and Željko Raljić (Congress Chair).

The Central Problem

My remarks invited audience interaction. They were simple. Institutional abuse does not end on its own. It gains momentum. A countervailing force is required to stop it. Otherwise, systems develop defensive and self-preservation mechanisms. Records can be buried. Illegitimate reputations can be protected. Responsibility can be delayed and deflected. Witnesses can be silenced. These mechanisms can outlast the endurance of the few victims who speak out. These patterns have been reflected in cases of clergy-perpetrated abuse and state violence, too. Secrecy is not accidental. It requires institutions and individuals within them.

Stolen Children, Stolen Stories

Terminology changes across contexts. In Serbia, the language can be used to report missing babies or abducted newborns. In Ukraine, the terms include unlawful transfer and deportation of children. In Canada, one historical analogue is the removal of Indigenous children from families into residential schools. More than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children attended Indian Residential Schools. Many never returned. The moral architecture of this abuse is the same. Children are separated. Time passes. Records become uncertain. Institutions demand that families accept official explanations without sufficient evidence. Children are stolen. At the level of a lifetime and cultural metanarrative, potential family narratives are stolen, too. Parents lose imagined lives. Children lose their origin and, therefore, their identity.

Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free

Journalism as Counter-Force

Journalism can assist public understanding. It does not replace courts, DNA testing, forensic inquiry, or legislative reform. Journalistic inquiry can provide durable public memory. Journalists gather testimony. They compare patterns. They preserve documents. They connect witnesses. Isolated suffering becomes evidence. The Boston Globe’s reporting on Catholic clergy abuse is a powerful case. This won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. The work pierced secrecy and produced institutional change. One family, one file, one hospital, or one missing document may seem isolated; when systematically gathered, these fragments can become a unified narrative and support institutional reform.

Rights Require Mechanisms

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child remains the most widely ratified human-rights treaty in history. Rights do not enforce themselves. They need advocacy. They require lawyers and researchers. They need responsive journalists. They need proactive activists. They need the resilience of families insisting on truth. Our congress program’s closing sessions emphasized the actionable priorities of advocacy before the UN, establishment of the International Organization for Finding Disappeared and Kidnapped Children from Maternity Hospitals (FIND), international cooperation, opening archives, a resolution on children’s protection and the right to truth regarding missing newborns, review of adoptions, and a DNA database.

The Long Work

When state institutions are implicated, state self-investigation is insufficient. This implies the necessity of independent mechanisms. Human rights remain because global citizens refuse to resign from the work of advancement. Our congress was the first large collective step toward networking for justice, documentation, accountability, and truth in these cases.

—

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a Writer-Editor for The Good Men Project with more than 1,900 publications on the platform. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343; 978-1-0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018-7399; Online: ISSN, 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719-6337), A Further Inquiry (SubStack), Vocal, Medium, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bank at In-Sight Publishing comprised of more than 10,000 articles, interviews, and republications, in more than 200 outlets. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), and Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20-0708028), and others.