New UN post to combat violence against children

Plan's new global campaign will target violence in schools

29 November 2007: Plan won a significant victory in its battle to halt violence against children when the United Nations General Assembly voted this week to create a new watchdog to protect young people.

A new UN Special Representative to the Secretary General will work to highlight the problem of violence against children and put pressure on governments, international organisations and others to do more to prevent it.

The new post was supported by 176 countries with only the United States opposing it.

The vote comes after a campaign by Plan and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for the UN to act on its own landmark report ‘Violence Against Children’.

Plan will now press for the new watchdog to be given sufficient powers to make a success of the job.

Shocking scale of violence

Published last year, the report revealed the shocking scale of violence inflicted on children:

• more than 220,000,000 children each year are victims of sexual violence
• 126,000,000 suffer the most hazardous forms of child labour
• up to 140,000,000 girls and women undergo some form of female genital mutilation
• 1,200,000 are victims of trafficking
• 1,800,000 are exploited in prostitution or pornography.

Corporal punishment

Plan is a key member of the NGO advisory council which has campaigned for action to tackle the problems identified in the report.

But NGOs failed to persuade the General Assembly to identify corporal punishment as one of the many forms of violence against children that needs tackling. This is a major disappointment which means there is little pressure on governments to outlaw corporal punishment.

A staggering 117 countries and dependent territories currently allow children to be beaten at school. Corporal punishment is a major factor in persuading millions of children to quit education.

Banning corporal punishment will be a central aim of Plan's global campaign against violence in schools to be launched next year.

Find out more about Plan's work to stop violence against children.