Home Office Case Study

A fast-moving project with tight deadlines

 

In December 2019, the Home office co-hosted a global summit to tackle online child sexual exploitation, in partnership with the African Union and the WePROTECT Global Alliance. It was held in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, and was attended by over 400 delegates from 94 countries.

 

Nick Ormiston, who coordinated the summit from within the Home Office’s Tackling Exploitation and Abuse Unit, takes up the story. “The event was the first of its kind to be held in Africa, with the aim of galvanising a global response to the issue of online child sexual exploitation. We had a large number of products that needed to be available in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic. Some were lengthy and technical in nature, requiring an in-depth knowledge of technology and law enforcement. This included the summit agenda; a global threat assessment which provided delegates with an updated account of nature and scale of child sexual exploitation; a global strategic response document; a large event brochure; and a communiqué.”

 

“In addition to the technical challenge, we were up against very tight timescales. Some products were still in development in the weeks leading up to event, and we couldn’t always provide concrete dates for completion – so the translators were at times dealing with ‘work in progress’.”

 

“Our chosen partner, K International, is one of the Home Office’s approved service providers and they were reactive, flexible and patient. They got the products into great shape within a short period of time and were highly professional throughout. They also collaborated effectively with our design team.”

 

“K International delivered the translations in time to have the materials printed and ready for the summit. It was invaluable to have been able to provide these translated versions – child sexual exploitation is a global threat that requires a global response.”

 

“The impact of the event would have been lessened without the high-quality translated products and we will now be using K International for some post-summit translation work.”