A new champion for children
The United Nations has sharpened its focus on combating violence against children with the creation last month of a new Special Procedure. This independent world expert will be called Special Representative to the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children.
The job of this Special Representative, for an initial term of 3 years, will include maintaining international attention on violence against children; identifying and sharing ‘good practices’ for its elimination; and working with and enhancing coordination between key actors.
The position was created by a vote in the General Assembly of 176 to 1. The only country to vote against the resolution was the United States.
Last year the then UN Secretary-General issued a Study on Violence Against Children (available in 10 languages, with a more detailed book available in English and Arabic). An international network of NGOs has formed to pursue the report’s recommendations and it lobbied for the creation of this new figurehead.
Forms of violence condemned by the General Assembly resolution include psychological and sexual violence, torture, exploitation, hostage-taking, domestic violence, trafficking in children and their organs, paedophilia, child prostitution, child pornography, bullying and harmful traditional practices.
Both the Secretary-General’s Study and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child want all corporal punishment of children abolished. "The family has the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of the child . . . [T]he State should support parents and caregivers to care for children."
The General Assembly last month urged states to protect children from violence by teachers, but failed to condemn explicitly violent discipline in the home.
The inaugural Special Representative to the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children has yet to be appointed.
