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Terre des Hommes welcomes the UN Study on Violence against Children which represents the outcome of an intensive consultation process involving governments, civil society and children. “Terre des Hommes sees it as a major step towards translating awareness about the need to combat violence against children into concrete measures,” says Raffaele Salinari, President of the International Federation Terre des Hommes. “Terre des Hommes strongly calls for the appointment of a Special Representative to the Secretary-General on Violence against Children as a high-level mechanism to ensure concrete follow-up to the Study. We also call on the newly chosen UN Secretary-General to give a strong signal that violence against children is not acceptable” continues R. Salinari. Terre des Hommes recalls that with such a mechanism the 1996 United Nations Study on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children has led to new humanitarian programmes to reinforce child protection in conflict and to greater attention to them within human rights monitoring and reporting systems. Through its day to day work to protect children from violence, Terre des Hommes is confronted with the suffering of children and can hear their voice. The book Surviving Cruelty collects some of these stories as a contribution to the UN Study on Violence against Children. Terre des Hommes runs a campaign against child trafficking through 73 projects in 38 countries that prevent or address the effects of violence for example at home, in the street or in detention centres. Terre des Hommes is also part of the “Keeping Children Safe Coalition” which is providing resources to implement child protection policies, including a comprehensive toolkit for development organisations. Today 275 million children worldwide are estimated to witness domestic violence, 126 million are engaged in hazardous work and the percentage of school-aged children that reported having been verbally or physically bullied at school in the previous 30 days ranged from 20 per cent to 65 per cent depending on countries. There are over one million children in prisons around the world exposed to daily violence, sexual violence against children is widespread and in 2002 almost 53,000 children aged 0-17 years died as a result of homicide.