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03/07/08
Preventing Family violence by making a difference
A two-day local workshop “Prevention of Family Violence and Support of Children Suffered from Abuse. Mechanisms of Cooperation and Methods of Work” in the framework of “Promotion of Integrated Model of Social Services for Vulnerable Families and Children in Kyiv Oblast” project on 19-20 of June ended with the call to local authorities to deal with the problem.
Participants at the workshop discussed the meaning, types, reasons for abuse and violence in families, particularly towards children. Moreover, they defined the roles and responsibilities of institutions dealing with children’s rights protection, developed ways to discover cases of violence and abuse on time, worked out the forms and methods of practical assistance to victims of violence and abuse.
Specialists agreed that child abuse was a major problem in their rayons and called for the review and updating of laws on children's rights, as well as the setting up of coordinating mechanisms to harmonise ongoing activities on child abuse management and prevention.According to United Nations report staggering statistics indicates 80-98% of children worldwide are violently abused. Hundreds of millions of children are either the victims of sexual and physical violence or witness it on a daily basis. It ranges from sexual abuse in the home to corporal and humiliating punishment at school; from the use of physical restraints in children’s homes to brutality at the hands of law enforcement officers; from abuse and neglect in institutions to gang warfare on the streets where children play or work; from infanticide to so-called ‘honour’ killing.
Experiencing violence in childhood is strongly associated with health risk behaviours later in life such as smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, physical inactivity and obesity. Therefore, professionalism of social workers at the local level is of extreme importance and plays the key role in breaking the violent cycle.
As many as 100 thousand of Ukrainian children are in residential care. Relatively few are in such care because they have no parents, but most are in care because of disability, family disintegration, violence in the home, and social and economic conditions, including poverty.
Training was facilitated by the trainers of Kyiv regional training center Anosova Anastasiya, Suslenko Olga. Berveno Olga – psychologist of “Hope and Homes” organization was an invited expert for the event.
