Transcript Dr Jenny J Pearce - Nicole Westmarland / FrontPage

www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
The Council of Europe
Campaign to stop sexual violence
against children
http://www.coe.int/t/transversalproj
ects/children/Default_en.asp
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
This presentation
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Where the campaign comes from
why look elsewhere?
What can be gained by linking with c of e?
rapporteur’s report
What is happening in Rome?
What are the theoretical principles behind a campaign to
stop sexual violence?
• Should young people be involved and how?
• What next
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Why look elsewhere?
When you go away, its not so much what
you see there, but how you return to see
familiar surroundings differently
G/local context : policy, economics and
theory
Violence against children UN 2006
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
UN : Violence against children
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“Children are at times blamed for what has happened, coerced to keep it a
secret and often stigmatized and marginalised by their families and
communities”, (Marta Santos, UN Special Representative of the Secretary
General on Violence against Children).
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Situations of armed conflict create a favourable environment for
impunity. Sexual violence as a tactic of war and a means to terrorise
civilians is used in modern day conflicts.
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Children are the most vulnerable yet they are the least protected.
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Violence against children is preventable. Investing efforts and resources in
prevention is the most effective means to reduce violence against children.
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
G/local context
• Religion, family, community and
environment
• Conflict and role of government: ISA and
RSA
– Poverty (UK 19.5% of children living in
poverty, Sweden 12%)
– ISA supported by state
– Policy contexts: family courts, small
residential units, early preventative services
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
G/local context
• Definitions of sexual activity and violence
• Age of consent to sexual activity:
– Turkey : 18;
– Cyprus, Ireland: 17;
– Belgium, Finland, UK 16;
– Czech R, Denmark, France, Greece 15;
– Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Germany,
Hungary, Italy 14;
– Spain 13
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G/local context
• Age of criminal responsibility: sex offender
for life
– Eng, Wales and Nth Ireland: 10
– Estonia, Germany Hungry, Denmark, Italy 14
– Finland, Norway, Sweden 15
– Portugal 16
– Poland 17
– Belgium 18
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Campaign to stop sexual violence against
children
The Council of Europe has amongst its major focuses the
eradication of all forms of violence against children.
Sexual violence is one of the worst forms of violence/ also remains
among the most unreported forms of violence
In most European societies, this is a taboo issue compounded by a
culture of silence and denial.
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Convention on the Protection of Children against
Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse 2007
The protection of children, respect for children’s rights,
responding to their views, needs and concerns at the heart of
this convention.
Child-friendly investigative and judicial procedures where child
victims are well protected,
Article 9 requires states to encourage the participation
of children, according to their evolving capacity, in developing
and implementing state policies and other initiatives in the fight
against sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Two main aims of campaign
• to support the signature, ratification and implementation
of the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of
Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse;
• to raise public awareness on the extent of sexual
violence within the child's circle of trust, how to empower
children to break the silence and to find the ways to
prevent and report sexual abuse of children.
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Rappertour’s report
• Diversity of forms of abuse : different forms of
sexual violence, prevalence within all
communities
• Recognition of needs of all age groups: older
young people can be victims of abuse
• Child perpetrators are often child victims
• UNCRC overrides variations in age of consent
http://www.coe.int/t/transversalprojects/children/News/Vien
na/Affiche_Vienna.pdf
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Kim Bromley-Derry, chair of Children and
Young People's interagency group (CIAG)
in Children and young people now, Dec 09
adolescents are a high risk group. There is a danger that
we focus too much on the risk to babies and very young
children… a number of services for young people,
including youth offending services, tend to come into
effect “after the horse has bolted”
Review of LSCBs: under ¼ addressing requirement to
protect yp and prosecute abusers (Jago, Pearce et al
2010)
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Launch in Rome
• Launched in Rome, Italy, 29-30 November 2010, (hosted
by the Italian Ministry for Equal Opportunities)
• To promote the campaign's key messages:
– an information pack including child-and family-friendly
leaflets,
– brochures, posters, postcards, etc.;
– a media pack, containing a TV spot and campaign
material;
– a dedicated website for the campaign.
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
The Process
• Identify countries wanting to take young people
(ratio one young person to one worker)
• Identify projects in UK wanting to participate
• Planning meeting and follow up activities
• The worlds worst trip : risk assessment
• Workshop in Rome before presentation
• Confidentiality , safety and media strategy
• De briefing : Rome and UK
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Young People’s involvement
• Not victim led: YP as active agents: Youth
advisors
• Risk assessment: joint fears and expectations
• Scrap books and photo albums
• The presentation: only a very small part
• Films and poster display
• Process not outcome
• Debriefing and moving on
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
What young people want to say
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Engagement: relationships
Expectations: penalised if not victims
Expertise: pain, anger and emotion
Time and effort
What they can do:
– training,
– art, drama and on line exhibitions,
– mentoring,
– conference presentations
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Theoretical contexts/questions
– ‘Youth’
‘participation’;
– Is a campaign to stop sexual violence against
children a feminist campaign?
– What are the boundaries between education
and political action for young people involved?
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Young People’s participation
Harts Ladder (1997) : hierarchy of progress
Warrington, 2010, Coleman 2010 :
Bi – directionality’, ‘information management’, ‘partnership’
verses ‘empirical model’
Participation as a process of political action
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Sexual Violence: feminism and gender
mainstreaming
Should a campaign against sexual violence be led/directed
by a feminist perspective, understood by young men and
young women?
Should staff ‘teach’ young people : data on prevalence
(NSPCC 2010), Barter 2009 findings for eg
Is this relevant to the young women and young man
speaking in Rome?
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Loosing feminism to Gender mainstreaming:
global communication
Sylvia Walby 2005 : Gender mainstreaming: productive
tensions in theory and practice (international studies in
gender, state and society 12 (3) : 321 - 343:
Gender Mainstreaming: operates through the
velvet triangle: feminist bureaucrats, trusted academics and
organised voices in the women’s movement
Criticised by : Angela McRobbie (2009) The aftermath of
feminism
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The aftermath of feminism
• Respectable version of feminism ‘made over’ for
approval by global governance
• Gender mainstreaming keeps intact notions of femininity
and masculinity
• Inside gender mainstreaming no critical debate of it as a
technocratic tool or of the tensions within feminist, queer
or post-colonialist feminist theory (see bell hooks: Outlaw
Culture)
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
What Now?
• Find acceptable language with young people
• Record the story: newsletter/photo library to be
published
• De brief with young people (bi-directionality and
information management)
• Form a network to advance the campaign in the
UK
• Maintain a discussion group: the nature and role
of feminism within a campaign to stop sexual
violence against children?