ONE in FIVE campaign - Seminar Combating child sexual exploitation at local and regional levels

Congress contribution to the Council of Europe ONE in FIVE Campaign to stop sexual violence against children

9 February 2012

Palais de l’Europe, room 5, opening at 9 am

Speech by Anica DJAMIĆ, Committee of Ministers’ Thematic Co-ordinator for Children, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Croatia to the Council of Europe

I would like to start by welcoming you on behalf of the Committee of Ministers and saying how pleased I am to be here with you today. The Council of Europe launched its One in Five Campaign to stop sexual violence against children at the end of 2010. We had to wait a little while before the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities joined in the Campaign by adopting its Strategic Action Plan last September, but considering the very important role local and regional authorities play due to their proximity to citizens, and therefore to the victims themselves, I can say in all honesty that I am very happy to welcome you on board.

I am also cautiously very much looking forward to the next four years, as I hope that the Council of Europe’s Strategy for the Rights of the Child, within which the Campaign is embedded, will very shortly receive the green light from the Committee of Ministers to continue its important work to protect and promote children’s rights. Violence has been a strand of all work undertaken to date, but we hope in future to pick up the pace in combating sexual violence inflicted on children. As Thematic Coordinator for Children, I make it my personal crusade to find ways to eradicate this terrible scourge on children’s lives.

On a more general level, we know that violence against children is a global problem of immense proportions; a problem whose true magnitude can only be guessed at since the majority of cases remain unreported. The extent of the known phenomena vary according to the definitions adopted and reporting procedures in place. There is only limited data available and monitoring systems vary from country to country.

What is certain is that violence against children happens everywhere, in every country, in every society. Violence against children cuts across boundaries, not only country boundaries - and here I’m thinking of the trafficking of many thousands of children for purposes of sexual and labour exploitation - but also of culture, class, income, education and ethnic origins. We see individual cases of extreme violence hitting headlines all too often. But the media do not report the small acts of violence inflicted on children every day, the repeated daily abuse, which hurt children deep down.

These acts of violence are not just physical. They can also be psychological: insults, humiliation, discrimination or neglect and maltreatment. There may be no visible signs of this abuse, no bruises, no cuts, no broken bones, but the result is invariably the same: grave and damaging repercussions on children’s mental and physical health.

But how great is this problem that the United Nations, the Council of Europe and many other international, regional and national organisations are spending so much time, effort and resources on it? Let me quote some quite horrific statistics - statistics that are drawn from the very recent report “Five years on: a global update on violence against children”, written by the NGO Advisory Council as a follow up to the UN Secretary General’s Study on Violence Against Children.

In the United Kingdom, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children referred over 16,000 reports of serious violence against children in the home to the police or social services in 2010-2011. This was a 37% increase on the previous year. Statistics show that most violent acts against children are carried out in the home by people they know and should be able to trust, such as parents or other family members, and that these figures are on the rise. This is particularly the case of sexual violence.

But violence is also occurring in other settings. It is a most distressing fact that some children are subjected to abuse in places where they have been sent for care. Cases of violence have been reported in residential homes for disabled children or foster homes, by staff who are supposed to look after them, or by the other children in care. In the United States, studies have found that rates of sexual abuse of children in the foster care system are four times higher than among the general population of children. Similar findings have been found in the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Poland, Serbia and Sweden.

Other areas where violence occurs includes:

§    the school environment, where corporal punishment is still carried out, bullying is rife, and sexual harassment a serious issue;

§    forced child labour is still a very prevalent form of child violence today, and alarming figures are reported in some countries for child sex workers, some as young as 10 years old;

§    Otherwise, as your Congress has already examined, street children are cause for serious concern, particularly as they are so vulnerable to agents of traffiking;

§    and as we all know drug-related violence engenders a real danger for children.

One of the newest forms of violence against children is that of child pornography and internet-related violence. The International Telecommunications Union reports that according to some surveys, one in five children are targeted by a predator or paedophile each year. One in five children, ladies and gentlemen. That means that if we were children here today, of the 60 or so people in this room, 12 would be a target.

The reason we are here today is to look at how we can combat one particular type of violence against children, that of child sexual exploitation. We are here to explore the local and regional dimensions of the Council of Europe’s One in Five Campaign. Why one in five? Because statistics show that one child in every five will, at some stage, be a victim of some form of sexual exploitation. You may like to recall what I just said about us as children in this room …

Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to have painted such a gloomy picture this morning, it is not a very bright start to your seminar, but then violence against anyone is not a bright issue, and against children it is a tragedy.

If we are gathered here today, it is because, as I said in my introduction, local and regional authorities have an extremely important role to play in combating child sexual exploitation. National governments may pass legislation and sign treaties but it is at your level that victims need help and support. It is at your level that prevention is necessary and can be most effective. It is in our towns and villages that awareness-raising programmes can and must be launched to help children and families recognise the scourge that is child sexual violence, where we can equip citizens with the tools they need to fight against it.

Looking at today’s programme, I can see that in Europe’s towns and regions, some very important and interesting action is being taken and very innovative structures and services have been set up. It is encouraging to see that the multi-agency structures that the Council of Europe advocates exist already in some countries. I hope that Congress members in whose towns these structures do not exist will be encouraged to go home and see about implementing them. And I am also pleased to see we have representatives of law enforcement agencies here because the fight against child sexual exploitation is not just about prevention and dealing with cases, it is also about protection, and the apprehension and prosecution of perpetrators. The good practises which we will hear about today will be of much benefit to all of the 200,000 municipalities and regions in the 47 member states that make up our Council of Europe. These good practises will form the backbone of the Congress’ Strategic Action Plan for the future and I count on you, members of the Congress, to find ways to spread this information and to adopt and implement these strategies in your constituencies and regions.

Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for your time. I wish you a fruitful day’s work and most importantly, I wish you much success in the implementation of your Action Plan and in the fight against child sexual exploitation at local and regional levels.