Building a Europe For and With Children

Summary: The programme "Building a Europe for and with children" is being launched in Monaco further to the Third Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe (Warsaw, May 2005). It is a response to both the mandate assigned to the Organisation to guarantee an integrated approach to promoting children's rights and the decision to launch a three-year action programme covering the social, legal, educational and health dimensions of the various forms of violence against children.

The aims of the Monaco conference are twofold.

First of all, an experimental type of forum will be held. This will be open to principal actors in the field of children's policies and to children themselves. At governmental level, the relevant ministries (in particular for education, health, social affairs and justice) will be invited to present their priorities and obstacles with regard to policy implementation. The scope and breadth of the debate on the promotion and protection of children’s rights will be enriched by contributions from local authorities, members of parliament, international organisations (both governmental and non-governmental), the private and associative sectors, and independent experts. Children will not only actively participate in the work of the conference, they will help us, throughout the duration of the programme, find ways to better inform, consult and implicate their peers in taking decisions that affect their lives.

The second aim of the conference is to identify priority activities and partnerships that will contribute to eradicating all forms of violence against children. By exploring the two sensitive topics of sexual abuse and corporal punishment, it is intended that, further the discussions in Ljubljana, the conference will contribute to breaking the shroud of silence surrounding these two issues.