ONE billion children are experiencing some kind of violence, physical, sexual, or emotional, every year, a high-level conference on ending violence against children has heard.
Every year, 130,000 children are killed by violence. In the past year, 82 million girls and 69 million boys experienced some form of sexual abuse.
With active participation from children and young people, the Global Ministerial Conference to End Violence Against Children, held in Bogotá, Colombia, held this month, heard how the climate crisis and migration were creating new opportunities for child exploitation through abuse and trafficking.
At the end of last year, more than half, about 47.2 million, of the world’s displaced people were children.
World Vision, which was represented in Bogotá, said that the situation for children in Latin America was “particularly dire”. In Colombia, one fifth of the migrants are less than ten years old.
The regional leader of World Vision in Latin America and the Caribbean, Joao Diniz, welcomed the conference as the first of its kind, attended by 120 countries and 50 ministers.
He said: “At World Vision, we celebrate that more than 100 countries made commitments to end violence against children, and some, but far too little, pledged to ban physical punishment. While we applaud the historic milestone of the first ever inter-ministerial conference on this topic, we will continue to ensure that this is not a one-off event. We remain firm in our call to end all forms of violence against children, by promoting effective policies, pushing for appropriate budgets, and behavioral change to protect children.”
The conference was held under the leadership of Colombia and Sweden, in collaboration with the World Health Organization and UNICEF.
It ended with several agreements, of which one concerned the creation of a platform for survivors of violence to pool experience and best preventative practice. More than 40 countries agreed to work together in the Pathfinding Global Alliance to end all forms of violence against children. The Alliance includes governments, the UN, charities, the private sector, and young people themselves.
The UK’s minister for Latin America, Baroness Chapman, announced £5 million from the Government to support grass-roots organisations that seek to end child marriage. “Any secure, peaceful society depends on the well-being of its young people, who must be able to achieve their full potential without fear of violence,” she said.
The Government said last month that it was “open-minded” about introducing a ban on smacking. In England and Northern Ireland, it is legal, under the Children Act 2004, for a carer or parent to discipline their child physically if it is a “reasonable punishment”, but it must not amount to wounding, bodily harm, or cruelty. In Scotland and Wales, smacking bans have already been brought in. Plans for a similar law in England were rejected by the Conservative government last year.