SRSG Viewpoints

Geographical movement has been a constant in human development. Today, however, widespread violence, armed conflict, violent crime, food insecurity and environmental degradation have reached such levels that we are witnessing an unprecedented level of mass human movement around the globe. Many of those on the move are children: girls and boys under the age of 18 who feel compelled to leave their homes and communities to flee violence or oppression or to seek safety and protection elsewhere.

Protecting children from bullying and other forms of violence at school is not just an ethical imperative or a laudable aim of education policy: it is a question of human rights.

On Friday 25 September, the new global sustainable development agenda was unanimously adopted by the Member States of the United Nations. The new agenda includes for the first time a specific target (16.2) to end all forms of violence against children, and ending the abuse, neglect and exploitation of children is mainstreamed across several other violence-related targets. This is the time to celebrate the adoption of the new development agenda and highlight how the global community can make the vision of target 16.2 a reality for all the world's children. 

The world stands at a pivotal moment towards ending violence against children and realizing the noble vision of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. In September 2015, the Member States of the United Nations will gather to agree on the new sustainable development agenda. In the short period from now until the end of September, the world has a golden opportunity to ensure that ending this most severe violation of children’s rights – the phenomenon of violence against children – remains at the heart of this global strategic agenda.

Still today, millions of girls continue to suffer the detrimental impact of physical, mental and sexual violence in the home, at school, in the community, in institutional care and in justice institutions. Evidence from some countries show that amongst the girls involved in prostitution and drug abuse, 80-90 percent have been exposed to sexual abuse and/or other forms of violence in their homes.

With the effective implementation the world over of the Conventions on the Rights of the Child and of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, there can be a paradigm shift in the way the human rights of children with disabilities are promoted, protected and fulfilled. This shift is urgently needed!

The life of children with disabilities is surrounded by stigma, discrimination, cultural prejudices, ill- perceptions and shocking invisibility. Unfortunately, it is also dramatically marked by heightened risks of violence, neglect, injury and exploitation.

We live in a globalizing world, in constant change. The search for better economic opportunities and for a better lifestyle, on the one hand; and political instability and armed conflicts, violence and discrimination, climate change and natural disasters, on the other, are some of the reasons behind international and internal migration flows – from South to North, and more significantly, across and within countries in the South.