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[Ljubljana/Geneva, 5 July 2005] - The invisible faces of children across
Europe and Central Asia (ECA) who are subjected to daily abuse and
violence in the home, school, community and residential institutions will
come into sharp focus at a conference starting today in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
‘Stop Violence Against Children – ACT NOW’ runs from 5-7 July and is
hosted by the Government of Slovenia and organized in close collaboration
with the Council of Europe, UNICEF, WHO, the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights and the NGO Advisory Panel on the UN
Study on Violence Against Children.
This consultation is one of nine worldwide that will feed into a major study
by the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, on Violence Against Children*
due out in 2006. The Study is headed by Prof Paulo Sergio Pinheiro who
will address the assembly in Ljubljana.
Delegations from all over the region will confront some harsh home truths,
literally and figuratively: the home is not always the safest place for a
child. In the European Region alone, four children aged 0-14-years are
killed every day - or over 1,300 every year - as a result of homicides or
assaults.
In addition, gaps in knowledge and data on violence against children are a
regional affront: the depth and extent of the problem is not known and
the spotty research available can only provide an approximation.
In an effort to address gaps, the Slovenian Government commissioned a
survey into violence in the home to inform preventive policy**. Preliminary
results from the survey reveal that of adults questioned:
• only 56 per cent would “certainly” inform the police if they knew that
neighbours were frequently beating their child
• only 49 per cent would “certainly” inform the police if their close relatives
were psychologically abusing their child.
• 73 per cent stated they had personally experienced family violence as a
child
• 33 per cent knew one or more families, where slapping was the normal
way of disciplining children
• 56 per cent knew one or more families, where shouting at children was
the norm
Regionwide, what few data there are, speak for themselves:
• The risk of homicide is about three times greater for children under the
age of one than for those aged 1-4. That age group, in turn, faces double
the risk of those aged 5-14.
• Studies carried out in 14 European countries put the rate of sexual
abuse both within and outside the family at 9 per cent: 33 per cent for
girls and 3 to 15 per cent for boys; in Slovenia there were 26 reported
cases of sexual abuse by those in a position of power in 2004.
• Girls are more often bullied than boys. Boys carry out 85 per cent of the
attacks. There are very few studies on girls as bullies. Eighty per cent of
violence is carried out by the 12-16 age group.
• In Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova there is
no explicit ban on corporal punishment in institutions.
• Gang violence has risen steeply in Eastern Europe. In the Russian
Federation, homicide rates for young people aged 10-24 rose by over 150
per cent after the collapse of communism. Shootings more than doubled in
Azerbaijan, Latvia and the Russian Federation.
Delegates old and young – some 25 young people are attending – will
work to come up with a list of things to do now and in the medium and
longer term to lift the veil of secrecy enshrouding the issue and to set up
effective avenues of redress for those trapped in the terror, isolation and
silence of brutality.
All countries in ECA have a legal framework for action – the Convention on
the Rights of the Child – but obligations are flouted day after day by state,
social services, law enforcement officials, community, media, family.
Complicit and permissive attitudes to violence against children will be
challenged and the media invited to play a pivotal role in shaping views on
children commensurate with their dignity as human beings, citizens and
vulnerable by virtue of age and size.
In schools, bullying and worse forms of violence take a toll in suicides or
ruined lives; the community provides scant refuge for thousands of
children living on the streets or merely ‘hanging out’; and most institutions
of detention or imprisonment across ECA should be denounced. Nor are
children necessarily safe and cherished in residential care.
Individual responsibility to speak out on violence against children will also
be stressed in the coming days.