The Justice Minister says a global alliance against internet child pornography will have an immediate effect on police working with international counterparts.
Judith Collins is in Belgium for the ministerial launch of the Global Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse Online on Wednesday in which 48 countries have pledged to strengthen efforts to fight online child pornography.
The alliance will create legal changes and increased co-operation between crime fighting agencies worldwide.
Ms Collins says it will prompt other countries to give the issue a higher priority.
"I think it will actually have an immediate effect in the levels of cooperation, but also the levels of connections between our law enforcement agencies and certainly the Ministry of Justice and its counterparts."
The minister says there will be tougher penalties, including increasing maximum charges for those producing and distributing child pornography.
Ms Collins says fighting child abuse should be a top priority in every country, and well-funded.
"New Zealand police are very well-funded, they put a very high priority on this. There are no cases I am aware of that they don't investigate because of funding issues."
Twenty-six New Zealand children have been exploited for online pornography in the past four years and some of the material has been sold or distributed by criminal networks.
Figures obtained by Radio New Zealand show 11 people have been caught taking pictures or videos of children since police set up a special unit in 2008 to target online child exploitation. Some of the offenders had multiple victims.
The figures, released under the Official Information Act, reveal that of the 26 girls and boys, four were exploited by criminals based in Italy, United States, Finland and Canada where images of the victims were uncovered during overseas operations.
