Children's Ombudsmen Statement on Violence Against Children

Submitted by crinadmin on Tue, 09/10/2007 - 09:23

ENOC Statement on Implementation of the UN Study on Violence Against Children recommendations

August 2007

We, members of the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children (ENOC), call upon our governments to vote on a strong resolution on the rights of the child at the United Nations General Assembly, October 2007.

This resolution must include violence against children as a central theme, reflecting the outcome of Professor Paulo Pinheiro’s World Report on Violence Against Children and echoing the key message of the Study that “no violence against children is justifiable; all violence against children is preventable”.

The UN resolution should reaffirm the overarching recommendations of the Study, including sections on the different arenas where violence against children occurs: in the home, in educational settings, in care and institutions, in the community and in the work place.

It is a well established fact that violence affects children in many negative ways, and hinders their healthy development. Furthermore, it has been proven that preventing violence against children would address problems that, if carried on throughout their life, would place a considerable social and economical burden on societies at large.

Yet, the full scale of violence experienced by children remains unknown, and the severity of the problem has not been acknowledged.

Children who are exposed to violence cannot wait any longer, and we need urgent action at national and international levels.

As children’s ombudspersons, we support the recommendations of the Violence Study and we urge our governments to ensure the resolution recommends every member state that has not yet done so, to:

Prohibit all forms of violence against children, including physical and humiliating punishment.
Establish an independent human rights institution for children, such as children’s ombudspersons or similar.

Finally, we call on the UN General Assembly to appoint a Special Representative of the Secretary General on Violence Against Children. The mandate for the Special Representative should be to:

1. Highlight and focus on all forms of violence against children and to mobilise all forces that can end this violence.

2. Support and monitor the implementation of the recommendations of the violence study.

3. Identify examples of best practice to fight all forms of violence against children.

4. Coordinate and communicate with all key actors in this work.

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