Photo courtesy of United Nations

"No violence against children is justifiable or acceptable", stated the UN and partners working to eliminate any act of violence against children, from sexual abuse and female genital mutilation to child labor and girl-child marriages with Friday's side event at UN Headquarters aimed at boosting awareness on practices for prevention and response to violence against children in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The UN missions of Uruguay, Brazil, Dominican Republic, the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) joined Marta Santos Pais, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Violence against Children, who opened the side event noting that the side event aims at building awareness and calling for greater partnerships that include children and adolescents themselves to help facilitate initiatives for elimination of violence against children.

The event launched regional studies and a child-friendly roadmap for South-America.  Governments, civil society and child representatives joined UN agencies promoting positive experiences and practices, but much more work and partnerships are needed noted experts, to help the 80-98% of children who suffer physical punishment at home and to avoid the UN Reported 53,000 children estimated to have killed worldwide in 2002 due to homicide.

Worldwide, approximately 40 million children below the age of 15 are subjected to child abuse each year, states the World Health Organization (WHO) and revealing that between 100 and 140 million girls and women in the world have undergone some form of female genital mutilation/cutting.

There are also non-physical forms of punishment which are cruel and degrading and these include punishment that belittles, humiliates, denigrates, scapegoats, threatens, scares or ridicules the child, according to the Committee on the Rights of the Child.