Each 27 hours one baby is sexually abused in Cyprus, Commissioner for Youngsters’s Rights Despo Michaelidou – Livaniou stated on Wednesday, in a press launch on the event of the European Day on the Safety of Youngsters in opposition to Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, on 18 November.
The above determine is derived from experiences filed to the “Youngsters’s Home” and knowledge supplied by it within the framework of a survey on the impression of restrictive measures taken to comprise the unfold of the COVID-19, on kids’s rights, the Commissioner explains.
Particularly, a complete of 241 experiences have been filed between January and June 2021, a quantity that corresponds to 83% of the instances reported in 2019, the press launch stated.
“Restrictive measures imposed to forestall the unfold of the pandemic have weakened the security internet for kids,” it’s famous.
In 2020, 324 kids have been confirmed to have been abused and “these are solely the youngsters that dared to talk,” the Commissioner for Youngsters’s Rights says.
The 18th of November, she famous, marks the start of a collective effort during which all of us ought to declare zero tolerance in direction of baby sexual abuse.
It’s underlined that everybody should keep alert and recognise their obligation to disclose and report each case that involves their data, to correctly inform kids and to empower them so as to have the ability to recognise dangerous behaviours and gestures and be inspired to talk up and report such incidents.
“Coordinated actions by the competent authorities and state companies are primarily essential to safeguard the most effective pursuits of the kid, each preventively and in any respect phases of the method: investigation of the grievance and speedy trial of the case, help of the sufferer and their household, but in addition fast introduction of inclusive intercourse training in any respect college ranges”, the Commissioner careworn.