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CLAIMS THAT THE European Commission has begun using the term “minor-attracted people” instead of “paedophiles” have been denied by the commission.
A claim that the EU Commission adopted the term was previously spread on social media groups and by media outlets, such as the pro-Brexit internet magazine Spiked.
A headline in The European Conservative read: “Scotland Police Rename Pedophiles As ‘Minor Attracted People’ at Direction of EU”, while the pro-Brexit internet magazine Spiked published a Facebook post, saying: “The term ‘minor-attracted person’ should have no place in public life. It is alarming to see it used by Police Scotland and the European Commission. This dangerous term only exists to downplay child abuse.”
The claim also appeared in a Sunday Independent opinion column by Patricia Casey, a psychiatrist, professor emeritus of psychiatry at UCD, and patron of the Iona Institute — a conservative Catholic group.
The article is titled “Renaming paedophiles as ‘minor-attracted people’ is dangerous, wrong and ignores damage they do to children” and largely focuses on a Police Scotland report that includes the term “minor-attracted people”, because “it is the phrase used by the European Commission”.
Casey goes on to argue against using of the term, which she says is favoured by people who “want to normalise paedophilia”.
She later says “this substitute wording seems to have won favour in the EU Commission” and ponders “who is promoting this in the commission”.
However, the European Commission told The Journal it does not use the term.
The term “minor-attracted people” often refers to those who have a strong sexual attraction to children but don’t commit sexual offences and tends to be used in certain contexts, such as efforts to tackle child abuse.
This is because the term “paedophile” can be used to refer to people who have committed sex crimes against children.
Some psychiatrists have therefore adopted the term ‘minor-attracted people’ to distinguish non-offenders from convicted or suspected child abusers.
The term is also used in academic contexts as it includes both paedophiles (a term which technically only refers to people attracted to pre-pubescent children) and hebephiles (who are attracted to pubescent children).
Patricia Casey was asked by The Journal for her source for her claims, to which she responded with a link to a story in the Scottish Daily Express.
However, that Scottish Daily Express story does not say that the European Commission favours the term. It does say that a project fact sheet on the Commission’s website uses it.
This factsheet describes one project of many funded by Horizon Europe, a €95 billion EU funding programme for research and innovation.
The individual project aims to “reduce the number of abused children and those at risk of exploitation” by addressing “people with a sexual interest in children and their needs for support and guidance to prevent them from abusing”.
Although the project includes organisations outside the EU, such as Police Scotland and a university in Belarus, it has a grant agreement of €2.4 million with the EU.
A Police Scotland statement previously said that the term was referenced in a report in June 2022, where it was quoted from the proposal document for this Horizon Europe successful applicant.
“At the first meeting of the consortium, in Warsaw in September 2022, Police Scotland officers successfully lobbied for the MAP term to be removed from recognised terminology used by more than 20 European partners,” the statement also said.
An earlier version of the factsheet for the project, which appeared on a European Commission website for publicly funded research, does use the term “Minor Attracted Persons (MAPs)”.
However, the language used is that of the individual project, not the European Commission.
“The Commission does not prescribe specific terminology for projects,” an EU Commission spokesperson told The Journal.
“Project applications, descriptions and outcomes do not represent the Commission or EU policy and are the sole responsibility of the project participants.”
The spokesperson also said that EU law refers to “suspect” or “offender”, noting that “not all offenders have a pedophilic disorder” and that some commit sexual crimes against children for other reasons, such as financial gain.
In cases where an offence has not yet been committed, such as the non-offenders targeted by the Horizon Europe project, EU law uses different terminology.
For example, one directive on combating the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, refers to “persons who fear that they might commit any of the offences referred to in Articles 3 to 7”.
“The Commission has not changed terminology when it comes to child sexual abuse,” the EU Commission spokesperson said. “In its own strategies and proposals for legislation, the Commission has not used and does not intend to use the term ‘minor-attracted person’”.
No search results appear on the EU or European Commission websites for the terms “Minor-attracted person”; “Minor-attracted person”; “Minor-attracted persons”, “Minor-attracted persons”; “Minor attracted people”; or “Minor-attracted people”.
Responses
Patricia Casey, the author of the Sunday Independent opinion piece, responded to The Journal FactCheck’s queries saying: ”Scottish Police in their response said that the term came from a proposal document of Horizon Europe. Horizon Europe is a funding initiative of the Commission itself. On that basis it seems fair to say that the Commission has favoured the term. This was the wording used by a Commission project in a document published on the Commission website.”
Casey also clarified: “I wrote that the terminology seems to have found favour with the Commission, not that it had replaced [the] other term.”
Various claims have suggested that the European Commission is using the term ‘minor-attracted person’ instead of ’paedophile’.
The commission has denied that it has adopted the term “minor-attracted person”, says it does not favour it over the use of the term paedophilia, and no usages of the term are found on its website.
A project that had used the term receives funding from the EU, and a European Commission website for publicly funded research previously included the term in a description for that same project.
However, the term is not used in the European Commission itself, nor is it part of its terminology.
As such, we find the claim the commission has adopted the term ‘minor-attracted person’ as MOSTLY FALSE.
As per our verdict guide, this means there is an element of truth in the claim, but it is missing critical details or context. Or, the best available evidence weighs against the claim.
The Journal’s FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. You can read it here. For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader’s Guide here. You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here.
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