Submitted by ssaliba on
[24 September 2014] - This week the Human Rights Council held a panel discussion yesterday on “accelerating global efforts to end violence against children’ during its 27th session.
The panel discussion focused on the recommendations of the UN Study on Violence against Children, elaborated by Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro and presented to the General Assembly in 2006, and reaffirmed the role of the Human Rights Council in tackling the issue.
The panel discussion was planned in March 2014, in a resolution on “Ending violence against children: a global call to make the invisible visible” adopted by the Council. The resolution reaffirmed that States had the primary responsibility to promote and protect human rights and take appropriate measures to protect children from all forms of physical or mental violence. It also urged them to give priority to prevention and to raise awareness of the negative effects of violence against children, as well as to strive to change attitudes that condone or normalise any form of violence against children.
Despite progress made since the presentation of the UN Study on Violence against Children in 2006, children continue to be victims of violence in different settings - the home and family, school, care and justice institutions, in communities, in places where children work and more recently also in cyberspace - in contradiction with human rights norms and standards, particularly the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocols.
Jane Connors, Director of the Research and Right to Development Division at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in an opening statement said that violence against children takes many forms. Ms Connors explained that, far too often, those phenomena are invisible, condoned and accepted and they occur in all parts of the world and cross cultural, religious and societal borders, including in places where the children were most entitled to refuge and protection, such as in homes, schools and their communities. She also stressed that there is no such thing as an “acceptable” level of violence against children; every State has the capacity to stop it and must do so.
Marta Santos Pais, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children, said that violence against children illustrated the many challenges that continued to compromise the protection of the rights of children. She stressed that it was critical to preserve the elimination of violence against children as a distinct target and a crosscutting concern in the post-2015 development agenda.
More information:
- Read the UN’s full report of the discussion
- Visit CRIN’s Violence page
- Visit the page of 27th session of the Human Rights Council’s