Incurable wounds” “

Home is not always the safest place for a child. In the European region alone 4 children aged between 0 and 14 are killed each day: over 1,300 each year, as a consequence of murder or injuries sustained by beating. This terrible scourge of “invisible violence” inflicted on children within the walls of the home, or at school, or in the local community, or in children’s homes, was denounced by UNICEF (UN Children’s Fund) on the opening day of the conference “Stop the violence against children – intervene now” held in Ljubljana (Slovenia) on the initiative of the Slovene government in close collaboration with the Council of Europe, UNICEF, WHO, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and various NGOs, from 5 to 7 July. The conference is one of the 9 meetings that, at the world level, will contribute to a global research programme conducted by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on violence against children, whose final report will be published in 2006. SILENCE BEHIND THE FRONT DOOR. UNICEF denounces the “scandal” caused by the “lack of knowledge and data on violence against children”. And it is just in this light that, on the occasion of the conference, the Slovene government commissioned a fact-finding survey on domestic violence by interviewing a thousand or so adults. Disturbing findings emerge from the survey: only 56% of those interviewed would “certainly” inform the police if they knew of any neighbours who frequently beat their own children; only 49% would “certainly” inform the police if any of their close relatives psychologically abused their own children; 73% declare they had a personal experience of family violence during childhood; 33% knew one or more families where beating their own children was the normal way of teaching them discipline; 56% knew one or more families where shouting at children constituted the norm. ABUSES IN THE FAMILY. At the regional level, in Europe and Central Asia, the few data available speak for themselves: the risk of murder is some three times higher for children below the age of one than for those aged between 1 and 4, while this age group in turn runs twice the same risk than the age group between 5 and 14. Surveys conducted in 14 European states indicate a rate of sexual abuse, both within and outside the family circle, of 9%, of which a third – 33% – concerns female children, and a percentage between 3 and 15% boys. ABUSES IN INSTITUTIONS. In Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Kirghizistan and Moldavia there are no explicit bans on corporal punishment in institutions. “The majority of reformatories and centres of detention [for children] in the countries of Europe and Central Asia ought to be denounced – says UNICEF -. Still less are children safe or properly looked after in institutes, boarding schools or orphanages”. BULLYING AND YOUTH VIOLENCE. In schools, bullying and grave forms of violence contribute to the level of suicides and to the destruction of many lives. Young girls are more frequently subjected to acts of bullying than their male counterparts. Young teenage boys are responsible for 85% of the aggressions. 80% of the violence is committed by the age group between 12 and 16. Acts of violence committed by adolescent gangs have increased dramatically in Eastern Europe. In the Russian Federation the murder rate in the age group between the ages of 10 and 24 has increased by over 150% since the fall of Communism. Gun-related crimes have more than doubled in Azerbaigian, Latvia and in the Russian Federation. UN CONVENTION IGNORED. Youth and adult delegates – some 25 youth participated in the conference – proposed a list of actions to be taken immediately and in the medium and long term, given that all the countries of Europe and Central Asia have signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of Childhood. Yet “the obligations prescribed by the Convention are being ignored, day after day, by states, social services, law-enforcement agencies, communities, the media and families themselves”, denounces UNICEF. At the meeting in Ljubljana discussion also focused on “the conniving and permissive attitudes towards violence against children”, while the media were urged to play a clear role in helping to stem it. The responsibility of each single individual to denounce violence against children was particularly underlined.