| Today is
Advocacy
Speaking out against sexual exploitation in our organisations
and churches
Overview
A key aspect to advocating is prayer.
The Asha Forum Prayer Teams (pdf)
gives practical ways to encourage your church/NGO to pray
for children at risk of sexual exploitation.
Tearfund's Understanding Advocacy (pdf)
is a good general understanding of advocacy from a biblical
perspective.
Tearfund Advocacy – Practical Issue Identification
(pdf) is a methodology which enables
the user to develop a plan.
The
Justice Awareness Guide IJM (pdf)
(International Justice Mission) also helps us understand
why advocacy is important and how to start lobbying.
Some examples of advocacy in the media are included.
-
ESCAPE TV Slot (video) from
Sri Lanka encourages viewers to stop sexual abuse (30seconds).
You may edit the video to include your organizations contact
information and play it where helpful.
- A
karaoke HIV AIDS video (video)
produced by Tearfund UK and Resource Development International (RDI)
with a coalition of NGOs in Cambodia about a man who gets
HIV/AIDS from visiting prostitutes.
- The Child Welfare Group produced A TV slot addressing the
problem of minors access to violent and explicit pornography in
Cambodia. It encourages minors to
Make the right Choice (video).
- A short
5-minute awareness video (video)
giving a concise picture of the global reality of child sexual
exploitation and challenges viewers to respond. Produced by The
Asha Forum to promote its work in helping children at risk of
sexual abuse.
The
Innocent Children and Violence (pdf)
report gives an overview of the many ways children are
exposed to violence around the world.
The UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children reports have
statistics and summaries of risks and effectiveness of
interventions for children at risk. It is updated annually and can
be obtained from
www.unicef.org (web).
It is also useful to understand different international
instruments that can be used to encourage Governments to meet the
requirements that they have promised to meet.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)
(pdf) has been ratified by nearly
every country in the world. It has been used extensively in
protecting the rights of the child. Articles 34 & 35 are
especially relevant but also 19, 32, 37, 39. A follow up in New
York in 2002 resulted in
World Fit for Children (pdf).
Another important document is
UN CRC optional protocol – sexual exploitation
(pdf) . World Vision has developed a
response to UNCRC in their document
Protecting Children – Child Rights from a Biblical Perspective
(pdf).
Two key International Conferences were held in Stockholm (1996)
and Yokahoma (2001) where commitments were made by many countries
around the world. See
Agenda for Action (pdf) from
Stockholm and the
Yokahoma Global Commitment (pdf).
The whole range of conventions and how national organizations can
use these international mechanisms to combat child sexual
exploitation and abuse is available in booklet by the NGO Group
for the Convention on the Rights of the Children Sub-group on
Sexual Exploitation of Children
www.focalpointngo.org (web);
NGO-CRC@tiscalinet.ch (email).
As Christians,
The Asha Forum Declaration (pdf)
and the
Oxford Statement on Children at Risk (pdf)
are both important in declaring our concern for children.
The International Federation of Journalists'
Putting Children in the Right: Guidelines for Journalists and
Media Professionals (pdf) gives
a general introduction to issues related to children at risk for
media personnel;
http://www.ifj.org (web).
If you want to involve youth and children in advocacy and the
UN Conventions on the Rights of the Child (CRC), look at UNICEF’s
Your Rights under the UNCRC (pdf)
and
Little Book of Rights and Responsibilities
(pdf).
Save the Children UK’s
Rights-Based Programming: An Evolving Approach
(pdf) is a guide on including CRC principles in programs.
Stop Violence Against Us!
is a Preliminary National Research Study (Glenn Miles and Sun
Varin, Tearfund) into the Prevalence & Perceptions of Cambodian
Children to Violence Against Children in Cambodia. The first
summary report (pdf) focused on
three aspects of the problem of violence against children - sexual
abuse, domestic violence against children and corporal punishment.
The
second report (pdf) is an
attempt to get information about the prevalence of three other
aspects of the problem of violence against children - trafficking
of children, bullying and gang violence against adults. Both
reports are an attempt to listen to children's own perceptions and
to continue to explore their ideas on how violence could be
addressed.
Case Studies
As If They Were Watching My Body
(pdf, 740Kb) is a research report presented to the World
Vision Cambodia on the issue of pornography and the development of
attitudes towards sex and sexual behaviour among Cambodian youth.
Wise Before Their Time
(pdf, 1Mb) is a research presented to the World Vision of
Cambodia on the complex links between violence, alcohol use, the
use of pornography and notions of masculinity and femininity.
Training at the Village Level (pdf)
is a case study of the Cambodian Centre for the Protection of
Children's Rights (CCPCR), a small secular group doing advocacy
and awareness raising at village level.
The Child Welfare Group's report on
Access by Minors of Pornography in Cambodia
(pdf) is an example of a network
attempting to address this problem which may be one of the leading
causes of child sexual exploitation.
Case Studies on advocacy (pdf)
are available on site at
http://www.viva.org/?page_id=239 (web).
Toolkit
UNIFEM and UNIAP have a briefing kit entitled
Trafficking in Persons: a Gender and Rights Perspective
(pdf) which gives an overview of the
problem and advocacy approaches from a gender perspective.
Best Practice
Early Childhood, Domestic Violence and Poverty (January 2004)
(pdf) edited by Susan Schechter of
the School of Social Work The University of Iowa. A series of
papers which are practical guidelines and policy recommendations
for Pediatric Health Settings, Early Childhood Programs, Family
Support Providers, Police, and Domestic Violence Agencies.
Website
More information on international and local forms of advocacy
against child sexual exploitation can be obtained from ECPAT
www.ecpat.net
(web)
|
