VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN: Mapping the Caribbean

Mapping the Caribbean: Call for information

By request of the Workgroup on Violence from the Global Movement for Children, LAC Division, the SMC Research Foundation is in the proces of ‘Mapping the Caribbean’. The information will be used by the Workgroup on Violence for advocacy purposes, as a follow up to the UN Secretary General’s Study on Violence Against Children (VAC).

The aim of this exercise is to identify key players, events, scenarios and materials at local and regional level, and create a ‘power map’ for the GMfC LAC Workgroup on Violence in order to devise a regional advocacy plan 2009-2010, build alliances, capacities and commitment towards the UN VAC Study’s recommendations in the Caribbean.

The VAC Study showed that violence against children takes place in all parts of the world, and in all settings:

  • in the home and the family
  • in schools and educational settings
  • in the streets
  • in care and justice institutions
  • in places of work
  • in the community

This is true too for the Caribbean Region, as the independent expert who conducted the VAC study, Paolo Sergio Pinheiro, stated in his Caribbean Consultation Address, 2005:

‘The challenge for the Caribbean nations, as well as for other regions affected by increasing urban violence, is to address the substantial patterns of inequality, marginalization and exclusion that prevent the population as whole, and particularly children and adolescents, from benefiting from the fruits of social development efforts. Only when children develop in an equitable society and are properly cared for, will we begin to be able to leave behind the shadows of poverty and violence which haunt indigenous peoples, afro-Caribbean, the underpriviliged, and the poor and miserable children in our countries.’ 

They are especially interested in:

  • youth (policy) events in the Caribbean and events concerning youth (policy) in 2009
  • youth networks
  • NGOs and NGO coalitions, alliances
  • possibilities for communication (newsletters, e-publications)
  • data collection and research
  • best practices in combatting violence against children and in participation of youth

Please submit your information before January 15, 2009 to:
[email protected] or: [email protected]

For more information, contact:
Hellen A. van der Wal, LL.M BA
Caribbean Representative, Global Movement for Children, LAC Division, Workgroup on Violence
Chair SMC Research Foundation (www.smc-research-foundation.org)
Caribbean Representative NGO Advisory Council for follow up to the UN SG’s Study on Violence Against Children (www.crin.org/violence/adcouncil/index.asp
Chair Telefon pa Hubentud Aruba (http://www.childhelpline.org/helplines/aruba.php

 

Owner: Global Movement for Children, LAC Division, Workgroup on Violence

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