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

Closing speech by Emin YERITSYAN, Chair of the Congress Current Affairs Committee

Ambassadors

Ladies and Gentlemen

Colleagues

Here we are at the end of our seminar.  We have heard some very interesting presentations of ways and means to combat child sexual exploitation.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all most sincerely for having taken the time out of your busy schedules to come to talk and exchange with us today.  Your experience of dealing with cases of sexual violence and abuse against children on a daily basis will be invaluable to the Congress in the pursuit of its work.

The Congress Bureau adopted our Strategic Action Plan on the local and regional dimensions of the Council of Europe ONE in FIVE Campaign to stop sexual violence against children last year.  This is a plan which, as our colleague Dusica Davidovic informed us, aims not only to raise awareness across Europe on the issue of sexual violence against children but also to promote the setting up of child friendly structures to deal with cases.  Today’s examples of good practise from Blackburn, from Zagreb and from Iceland must surely serve as an inspiration to local and regional authorities across the 47 member states of the Council of Europe, and I hope our members will take back some of the ideas they have heard today and discuss with their fellow councillors and elected colleagues.  This is an issue that must find its way onto the agenda of every meeting of every local council and every sitting of every regional parliament.

We have also heard some very good examples of how local and regional authorities can cooperate with partners such as law enforcement agencies, NGOs and private initiatives to provide services, such as awareness raising in schools, or support to victims, that they may have neither the capacity nor the resources, either financial or human, to organise themselves.

So what are the next steps?  You will see in our Strategic Action Plan that our aim is that local and regional authorities across Europe develop and implement community-based action plans and strategies, and invest in better services that respect children’s rights in order to deliver locally, within our own communities, what children and families need.

The structures and services we have seen today are examples of the means we, at local and regional levels, can use to set up quality child care services, to detect, assess, treat, and respond to cases of sexual violence, and to bring perpetrators to justice.

There are over 200,000 local and regional authorities in Europe, only about 30 mayors, councillors, elected representatives are here today.  So how are we going to reach out to the farthest corners of the Council of Europe space?  I know the members of the Congress present here today and in our Current Affairs Committee are very committed to this question and this is something we will be able to explore together.  Over the coming months, we will work on how to implement the Congress Strategic Action Plan.  I think it is most important we work with the national associations of local and regional authorities as they are perfectly placed to raise awareness amongst all of their members and we will devote part of this year’s biennial meeting with them to the Campaign.  We will also cooperate with the Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies and the Network of regions with legislative powers. We plan to organise an information session during a conference they are holding with our own Chamber of Regions next June, and the examples we have heard from Austria to day will no doubt be very useful to us on that occasion.

We will also look into the possibility of setting up a network of contacts, drawing on the experience of the Parliamentary Assembly.  With so many local and regional authorities, we will need to figure out the most practical way of organising this, one per authority would be impossible, one person per country could represent an inhuman workload!  Needless to say your suggestions are more than welcome.

Perhaps it would also be useful for us to follow the Assembly’s example and produce a collection of best practises.

These are all suggestions and, on behalf of our Committee, I would like to invite the Secretariat to reflect on these different issues and to come up with some proposals for concrete action.  And of course I invite all of you to send in your proposals to the Secretariat too.

Ladies and gentlemen, it has been a long day of fruitful discussions, I’m sure you are now all looking forward to the next steps, steps which we will be able to take together over the coming months.

I wish you all a pleasant evening and a safe journey home.