World Congress Press Release on Children's Recommendations
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UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay |
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27 November 2008 – Rio de Janeiro – Nearly 300 adolescents from 96 countries
are in Brazil participating as delegates in the World Congress III against
Sexual Exploitation of Children.
The young people, hailing from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and North
America, have come to Rio to work directly with international organizations
and governments and help shape future strategies for combating child sexual
exploitation.
Seventeen year old Filip Volf of Belgrade, Serbia, says he came to Brazil
because young people have an insight and connection to the issue that is
invaluable to those working to end this terrible violation.
“It is critical that adolescents participate in events like this and share
their ideas with their peers, governments and the international community,”
said Volf. “This involvement is very important because tomorrow these
adolescents will become policy makers”
Adolescents like Filip have been active throughout 2008 in the lead up to
the Rio Congress. Hundreds of young people have participated in the
different regional and thematic conferences that have taken place around
the world this year and their contributions have helped shape the agenda
this week.
One of the innovative tools they used to help them communicate with each
other in preparing for the World Congress has been www.stopx.org, a website
that was created by UNICEF to enable the young people to meet on-line,
discuss the problem of sexual exploitation in their different regions, and
decide on actions to take in fighting the problem.
Terra Weikel of UNICEF said that stopx.org has been a crucial part of the
young people’s efforts to prepare themselves to be fully fledged delegates
at the Congress.
“The adolescents have come to Rio from all over the world, and stopx.org
has helped them to really share their experiences and different
perspectives and come together without being in the same room,” Weikel
said. “Through stopx.org they have been able to focus their energies and
develop concrete recommendations we hope will be taken on board by the
governments and international organizations here in Rio.”
Some of the recommendations that the adolescents are presenting to other
delegates during the Congress include: Harmonizing laws on trafficking
among countries to ensure victims of trafficking can receive the same
protection regardless of where they find themselves. That children being
trafficked our sold into the sex trade are treated as victims and are not
criminalized, and Ensuring there are specialized services to treat children
who have been sexually exploited.
The presence of adolescents among the nearly 3,000 delegates at the World
Congress is an important step in affirming their valuable and effective
participation in fighting sexual exploitation. The fact that roughly ten
per cent of all the delegates are young people is also critical in
promoting their long-term participation in government, civil society, and
private sector initiatives.
Led by Brazilian organization Viração, the adolescents were also supported
to come and participate in the World Congress by organizations such as
UNICEF, Save the Children, Plan International, World Vision, ECPAT, the
International Institute for the Development of Citizenship (IIDAC),
National Council of Children and Adolescent Rights (Conanda), Industry
Social Service (SESI), Petrobrás and the government of Brazil.
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For more information, please contact:
Laura Fantozzi, UNICEF Brazil, +55-61-8166-1631, lfantozzi@unicef.org
Vivian Ragazzi, Revista Viração, +55-21-9890-5524, Vivian@revistaviracao.org.br
Geoffre Keele, UNICEF New York, +1-917-605-1696, gkeele@unicef.org
Maria Jose Ravalli, UNICEF Latin America & the Caribbean +54-9-11 737-3809,
mjravalli@unicef.org
For access the content produced by adolescents during the World Congress
III, please visit www.stopx.org
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