Regional launch of the UN Secretary General?s Study on Violence against Children with a focus on the situation in Latin America and the Caribbean. The report includes recommendations particularly targeted at Governments urging them to meet their obligations in terms of prevention and eradication of all forms of violence against children.
Mart?n Torrijos Espino, President of Panama (to be confirmed)
Professor Paulo S?rgio Pinheiro, Independent Expert, appointed by the UN Secretary General to coordinate the Study.
Nils Kastberg, UNICEF Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean on behalf of the United Nations.
Daniela Salazar, Expert in Human Rights of the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights
Halima Kassim, Deputy Programme Director, Caribbean Community development (CARICOM)
Corinna Villacorta, Vice-President of World Vision, on behalf of the Secretariat of NGOs which support the Study: World Vision, Save the Children, Plan International, Defence for Children International.
An adolescent from Nicaragua, on behalf of the children and adolescents of Latin America who participated in the Study.
The Latin American and Caribbean region is one of the most violent in the world, where violence transcends cultural borders, class differences, education, ethnic origin or age, and threatens or even kills thousands of children and adolescents. The root causes of this high level of violence are to be found in a combination of extreme economic and social inequalities, the predominant culture of ?machismo? which characterizes the region, as well as in the failure to implement existing legal protection mechanisms.