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

Opening speech for Keith WHITMORE, President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe

9 February 2012, Palais de l’Europe, room 5

Deputy Secretary General

Ambassadors

Ladies and Gentlemen

Colleagues

I too would like to welcome you to this very important event and I’m glad so many of you managed to get here in spite of the industrial action!

Local and regional authorities play probably the most important role in dealing with cases of sexual abuse and violence against children.  Governments and parliaments may legislate and provide us with legal texts to guide our work, but it is we, at the local and regional levels, who are closest to the victims.  It is to local services that children will turn for help, for protection, for action, quite simply because we are there, just around the corner.

Tragically, abuse and violence against children, including sexual violence, still remain widespread in European society. This violence is happening in our towns and cities, often behind closed doors, shrouded in secrecy and protected by privacy. If anyone can do something about this, local and regional authorities can.  They not only can do something, they must do something.  Inaction cannot be excused faced with this scourge.

This is why the Congress fully supported, in 2009, the Policy Guidelines on National Integrated Strategies for the Protection of Children against Violence. In October 2009, we adopted policy recommendations to local and regional authorities on how to contribute to the Guidelines, stressing the need to set up local and regional mechanisms and action plans, ensure coordination with national governments and other agencies, and establish quality management systems for child care services as well as benchmarks for agencies.

And this is why we are supporting today the Council of Europe One in Five Campaign.  This is why we have adopted a Strategic Action Plan to guide local and regional authorities in reaching the aims of the Campaign.

The challenge we at our levels face today is to set up better services that respect children’s rights in order to deliver locally what children and families need, to stop sexual violence and to bring perpetrators to justice.  We must find what type of service can best meet children’s needs, how we can keep their interest at heart, how we can avoid making their situation worse by ill structured services.  We need to study how to detect, assess and respond to cases of sexual violence and abuse against children.

But our action must not be limited to providing efficient services, we must also launch campaigns to raise awareness on the whole issue of sexual violence against children.  We must find a way to help parents, carers, teachers, social workers to talk to children about sexual violence in a child-friendly manner.

Today’s programme has been designed to help us do all that.  We will see what policies, what structures and mechanisms, what tools are being used across Europe to deal with cases of abuse, to help victims, to raise awareness, all with the aim of successfully combating child sexual exploitation at local and regional levels.  Our speakers today are all experts in their field, people who work on a daily basis, to create child friendly services, to raise awareness of children, their parents and other actors, of the issue of the prevention of sexual violence against children and on the help and assistance available.  They have devised mechanisms, programmes, tools, institutions which can all help us to achieve the Congress’ aim to bring about the adoption of child-friendly local and regional services, to protect children and help prevent sexual violence within the community.

And this is why I said today’s seminar is a very important event for us.  Thanks to these examples of good practise, and thanks to the contributions you will make during the discussions, by the end of the day, we will have acquired enough material to form a solid basis for our Strategic Action Plan thus making the Congress’ future contribution to the Council of Europe One in Five Campaign even more pertinent and hard hitting.

I hope, by the end of our seminar today, we will all be inspired as to how we can improve on the services provided by our local councils and regional parliaments.  After today, we will be equipped to mobilise local and regional authorities across the 47 member states of the Council of Europe and to rid our continent of this plague of violence.

Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you will participate actively in the discussions and exchanges today and will be able to bring much food for thought home with you.

Thank you for your attention