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The NGO Advisory Council for Follow-up to the UN Study on Violence against Children
A NGO council was formed specifically to support strong and effective follow-up to the UN Secretary-General’s Study on Violence against Children. Its primary purpose is to encourage and maintain NGO involvement at national, regional and international levels in follow-up advocacy with governments, UN agencies and others for full implementation of the Study's recommendations.
The new NGO Advisory Council will have 18 members: 9 representatives from international NGOs, and 9 representatives selected at regional level from national and regional NGOs.
The nine international representatives were selected based on nominations invited from INGOs around the world. Each representative was selected based on the representative’s/organization’s commitment to the study, expertise on violence against children, ability to relate to broader networks during the follow-up, past history of participation in the study process, and potential contribution to the follow-up process. Paulo Pinheiro and Jaap Doek were each consulted for the final selection process.
The mandate of the NGO Advisory Council is:
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To encourage and maintain NGO involvement at national, regional and international levels in follow-up advocacy with governments, UN agencies and others for full implementation of the UNSG’s Study recommendations;
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In particular to advocate for a Special Representative to the SG on violence against children and to work with a SR when appointed;
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To work with the Independent Expert and the Inter-Agency Working Group, particularly in identifying key priorities for the working group and its members and developing follow-up activities and strategies to ensure effective implementation of the Study’s recommendations;
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To identify and transmit important information regarding VAC from the field level to the SRSG and other appropriate UN bodies;
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To use and strengthen existing information channels/mechanisms (e.g. CRIN, NGO Group mailing lists, etc.) to inform the child rights NGO community regarding the follow-up of the UNSG’s Study on VAC and its implementation;
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To be strongly and systematically connected to the proposed Youth Council in order to support continued and increased participation of children in follow-up;
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To participate in monitoring the implementation of the Study’s recommendations by member states.
International Representatives
Jo Becker – Human Rights Watch (HRW)
Jo Becker is the Children's Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch. She served on the editorial board for the UN Secretary-General’s Study on Violence against Children, and from 2004-2006, co-chaired the international NGO Advisory Panel for the Study. She served on the steering committee for the North American regional consultation for the Study, and organized a thematic consultation for the Study on violence against children in conflict with the law. She is the founding chair of the international Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, and from 2000-2002, co-convened the Child Rights Caucus, a global network of more than 100 non-governmental organizations that conducted a two-year child rights lobbying effort for the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children. She authored Easy Targets: Violence against Children Worldwide, and other Human Rights Watch reports on violence against children, barriers to education, the use of child soldiers, and children in detention.
Roberta Cecchetti – Save the Children
Roberta Cecchetti is the Advocacy Manager on Child Protection for Save the Children. She is based in Geneva. Save the Children was involved extensively in the UN Study process, including its regional consultations, providing support for children’s participation, and making substantive submissions on thematic issues including child sexual abuse, children in conflict with the law, gender based violence, and physical and humiliating punishment. Roberta is coordinating and supporting Save the Children global advocacy on Child Protection and chairs Save the Children advocacy group for that purpose. She is the President of the NGO Group for the Convention on the Rights of the Child and chairs it Executive Committee.
Peter Newell - Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children
Peter Newell is a long-term advocate for children's rights in the UK and internationally. He is Coordinator of the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children. In England he chaired the NGO Children’s Rights Alliance from 1992 to 2002 and is Coordinator of the Children are unbeatable! Alliance, campaigning for abolition of all corporal punishment. Together with his partner, Rachel Hodgkin, he prepared UNICEF’s Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. He has worked frequently as a consultant for UNICEF, in particular advising on general measures for implementation of the Convention and on establishment of independent human rights institutions for children. He is also Adviser to the European Network of Ombudspeople for Children. Peter was a member of Professor Pinheiro's Editorial Board for the UNSG's Study, and also of the NGO Advisory Panel.
Theo Noten – End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT)
Theo Noten has managed ECPAT - The Netherlands since 1996. He is a member of the executive board of ECPAT International, chair of its credentials committee and advisory on trafficking, child pornography and child sex tourism issues. He was in the ECPAT international preparatory team for the Yokohama Review for Europe and CIS. Since 1998, he has been a member of the board of the Dutch Hotline on child pornography on the Internet, which is part of the international INHOPE association. He is a partner in the worldwide Code of Conduct for the protection of children from sexual exploitation in tourism. He was coordinator of the ECPAT Europe Law Enforcement group responsible for the 2002-2004 research on trafficking in children for sexual purposes in 16 countries and for the 2004-2006 Multi Stakeholder Training Program on Trafficking in Children for Sexual Purposes in 19 countries in Europe. Since 2004, he has been a member of the Expert group of the OSCE Alliance against Trafficking in Human Beings.
Cécile Trochu Grasso – World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)
Cécile Trochu Grasso is the manager of the Child Rights Programme at the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), which fights against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, summary executions and forced disappearances. It coordinates the SOS-Torture network of 282 national, regional and international organisations in 92 countries. Regarding the rights of the child, OMCT conducts urgent campaigns in cases of grave violations of children’s rights; it provides assistance to child victims of torture and submits alternative reports to the UN treaty bodies (to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Human Rights Committee, and the Committee Against Torture with the aim to mainstream the rights of the child). Cécile’s main areas of action at OMCT are juvenile justice, corporal punishment and other forms of violence against children.
Ann-Kristin Vervik– Plan International
Ann-Kristin Vervik is head of the human rights section in Plan Norway and is part of Plan’s global working group on follow-up to the World Report on Violence Against Children. She has a higher law degree from the Universities of Oslo and Bergen. She specialised in Public International Law and her main field of study was the human rights based approach to development, with special focus on the complementarities of the CRC and CEDAW. Her work is particularly devoted to gender-based violence and non-discrimination and equality for indigenous children, children of ethnic minorities, children without parental care and other socially excluded children. She is a member of the NGO Group’s subgroups on violence against children and children without parental care. Ann-Kristin has grass-root experience from Burkina Faso and Norway and is currently involved in program follow-up in South-East Asia, Latin America and Southern and Eastern Africa.
Veronica Yates – Child Rights Information Network (CRIN)
Veronica Yates is the Director of CRIN, which uses the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to bring children's rights to the top of the international agenda. CRIN hosts and launches campaigns and strives to make existing human rights enforcement mechanisms accessible for all. Veronica has been working for CRIN for over nine years, over the last three preparing CRIN for and leading it into independence. In her direct involvement in the Study, Veronica participated in most of the subgroup meetings leading up to preparations for Regional Consultations. She participated in six of the regional consultations reporting on processes on a daily basis, with a particular focus on documenting children’s involvement in the meetings.
Regional Representatives
North America
Katherine Covell, Children's Rights Centre, Cape Breton
University, Sydney, Nova Scotia Canada
Katherine Covell is a Professor of Psychology and Executive Director of the Children’s Rights Centre at Cape Breton University. Dr. Covell’s research and teaching is focused on the developmental implications of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. She has published numerous articles and four books on children’s rights, the most recent of which is Children, Families and Violence (Covell & Howe, 2009). Dr Covell also advocates for children’s rights. She has undertaken research and the development of education materials for the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children, represented the Canadian NGO community at the UN Special Session on Children and Youth 2001-2002, presented Canada’s NGO report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva in 2003, and was the lead researcher for the UN Global Study on Violence Against Children, for North America.
South Asia
A.K.M. Masud Ali, INCIDIN Bangladesh
As one of the three Executive Directors I am working in INCIDIN Bangladesh, a non-profit research, advocacy and capacity facilitation organization working since 1995. The central focus of this organization is to assist the development process of Bangladesh whilst never loosing sight of the fact that social issues need to be addressed in order to make the process sustainable and viable. Development of women and children is the priority of INCIDIN Bangladesh. I have worked on National Policies (such as child labor policy) such as drafting of NATSPA, National Strategy of Prevention of VAC and National Child Protection Policy. Presently I am also the Chair of ATSEC Bangladesh, a national network of NGOs against human trafficking.
West and Central Africa
Mr MALLY Kwadjo Essediaba, WAO Afrique (Action to stop child exploitation), Lomé, Togo.
Latin America
Gerardo Sauri, Red por los Derechos de la Infancia en México
The Caribbean
Hellen van der Wal, Stichting Arubaanse Kinder- en Jeugdtelefoon – Child Helpline Aruba
East and Southern Africa
Judith Mulenga, Zambia Civic Education Association
East Asia & Pacific
Irene V. Fonacier-Fellizar, Center for the Promotion, Advocacy and Protection of the Rights of the Child Foundation, Inc.
Irene Fonacier Fellizar is the founding President and Chief Executive Officer for the Center for the Promotion, Advocacy and Protection of Child Rights in the Philippines and founding member of the Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Sexual Abuse. Since 2000, she has chaired the inter-agency bodies on sexual abuse and commercial exploitation of children, and children and HIV all under the Philippine Council for the Welfare of Children. Among others, she has written the Philippine Report on the State Implementation of the Optional Protocol to the CRC on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography and the Philippine Strategic Framework on the Country HIV Response for Children and Young People. In the region, she is a Child rights Co-Focal Point for the Solidarity for Asian People’s Advocacy Task Force on ASEAN and Human Rights (SAPA-TFAHR); a member of the Child Rights Coalition Asia and the Inter-agency Working Group on Child Protection.
Middle East and North Africa
Thaira Shalan, Arab Council for Childhood and Development
Europe and Central Asia
Thomas Mueller, Child Helpline International