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| Participants of the special Seminar on Child Safeguarding held in Nairobi |
By Bezawit Assefa, Ethiopia Catholic Secretariat
A special seminar focusing on child safeguarding and launching standards and guidelines for child protection was held in Nairobi, Kenya from May 27th to June 1st2019.
A booklet of standards and guidelines has also been launched and it to be used in common by all child protection and nurturing departments from each conference in AMECEA region. The tool enables each Conference to develop their own policies as per their contextual considerations. It reviews the basic focal points behind child safety and clearly describes the basic standards of child safeguarding.
The impact of child abuse is increasing over time and time so much that the seminar focused on the timeliness of taking action and listening to the voice of children all over Africa specially in the horn of Africa where each child is exposed to at least one form of abuse or the other, ranging from exploitation, physical abuse, emotional and sexual abuse.
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| Across-section of participants during the seminar session |
At the recent special meeting of representatives from each conferences all over the world, Pope Francis said that abuse of minors is satanic and clearly stated that all everyone must change the mentality regarding the impeccable seriousness of the issue of child safeguarding.
During the seminar in Nairobi, most participant suggested that Africa should implement the guidelines for safeguarding a child so that the entire community may understand the impact of child abuse.
By the end of the conference all representatives committed themselves to addressing the issue and engaging in reporting child abuse.
Like all the Conferences in the region, the Ethiopian Catholic Church is playing her role as it established the National Child Nurturing and Protection Department at the Secretariat as well as 8 diocesan offices. It is working on creating awareness about the seriousness of the issue; it has so far prepared and distributed a policy.
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