THE Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) held a workshop in Yangon October 19 and 20 on protecting children from violence.

The workshop, which was scheduled to coincide with the release in Myanmar of a major UN study highlighting the issue, focused on the local dynamics of a global problem by seeking to develop strategies to raise public awareness and identify possible responses to prevent violence against children throughout the country.

The global UN study was commissioned by the UN General Assembly in 2001 and was led by Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro of Brazil, an independent expert appointed by the UN Secretary General.

The report provides an in-depth picture of the prevalence, nature and causes of violence against children, and calls for specific actions to improve legislation, policies and programs aimed at preventing and responding to such violence.

The Yangon workshop was attended by representatives from more than 30 government ministries, UN agencies, national and international non-government organisations, and community-based organisations.

International experts and national resource officials provided the workshop’s participants with global, regional and local perspectives on violence against children and explored the possibility of actions that could be taken in response to the problem.

Mr Ramesh M Shrestha, UNICEF’s resident representative in Myanmar, said UNICEF has been promoting the concept of creating a protective environment for children where society takes action to prevent and respond to abuse, neglect and exploitation as well as acts of violence and discrimination.

“The fundamental aim of this concept is to ensure that all those with a duty to safeguard the protection of children recognise that duty and are able to fulfil it,” he said, adding that protecting children from violence is the duty of everyone at all levels of society.

U Sein Win, director of the Department of Social Welfare, said the department is trying to combat the problem by providing childhood care and development services through residential nursery schools, as well as children and youth welfare services at youth training centres.

He said most children who live on the streets in Myanmar are forced to do so because of broken families, social and economic difficulties, and parental abandonment.

The UN study said violence against children exists in every country of the world, across all cultures, classes, educational levels, incomes and ethnic origins.

“The majority of violent acts experienced by children are perpetrated by people who are parts of their lives: parents, schoolmates, teachers, employers, boyfriends or girlfriends and partners,” the study said.

It also said that disabled children, children belonging to minority groups or living on the streets, children in conflict with the law and those who are refugees or displaced from their homes are particularly vulnerable to violence.

Violence against children, it said, remains hidden for many reasons. The study pointed to fear as a main factor preventing an effective response to the problem because the perpetrators of violence are often more powerful members of society.

The unveiling of the study’s results in Yangon coincided with a regional unveiling held in Bangkok.