UNITED NATIONS - The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Tuesday announced an initiative that urges citizens, lawmakers and governments to speak out more forcefully to help fight violence against children.
The initiative builds on growing popular outrage that has erupted in the wake of a series of horrific attacks against children, such as the
October 2012 shooting of then 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan, the fatal shooting of 26 pupils and teachers in Newtown, the U.S. state of Connecticut in December 2012, and gang rapes of girls in India and South Africa in 2013.
“In every country, in every culture, there is violence against children,” UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said. “Whenever and wherever children are harmed, our outrage and anger must be seen and heard. We must make the invisible visible.”
That is the underlying message as UNICEF launches the End Violence Against Children initiative. The initiative urges people around the world to recognize violence against children, join global, national or local movements to end it, and to bring together new ideas to focus collective action on this goal.
“We have the power to fight violence now,” said the UN agency.The initiative was unveiled with a powerful video narrated by UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Liam Neeson, who leads the viewers through a series of scenes depicting invisible violence.
“Just because you can’t see violence against children doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” Neeson said. “Make the invisible visible. Help us make violence against children disappear. Join us. Speak out.”
The need to take urgent collective action is underlined even by the limited statistics available, which point to the scale and extent of violence.
For example, some 150 million girls and 73 million boys under 18 experienced sexual violence and exploitation, according to the World Health Organization. And an estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked every year, according to a 2005 report by the International Labour Organization. Violence inflicts not only physical wounds but leaves mental scars on children, UNICEF stressed.