Request for institutional responsibility in the matter of protection of children victims of sexual abuse and request for more rigid punishment for the abusersOn the occasion of the recent four cases of incest and rape on his own daughter (12) and her friend (12 ), children mentally disabled, by T.P.(51) from Bogomila, H.D.(35) from Veles, suspect for an attempt of rape on his step daughter(14), Macedonian citizen Ljupco V. arrested in Herceg Novi, Montenegro since he was suspected for touching minors and Jove K. from Sthip suspected for rape of two 13 year old children fro the orphanage” 11 th October from Skopje on June 30, 2008, THE FIRST CHILDREN’S EMBASSY IN THE WORLD-MEGJASHI had to react on the matter.
We follow trough the integral text of our reaction:
THE FIRST CHILDREN’S EMBASSY IN THE WORLD-MEGJASHI demand from the judges to condemn the pedophiles, child rapists and those who have committed incest with highest punishments from 10 to 15 years, and for the most severe crimes- life time prison.
In Macedonian law there is legal ground for adjudgement highest punishments for the pedophiles and sexual violators over children but most frequently judges adjudicate more mild punishments.
We are asking the courts for protection of the children, victims of sexual violence, who are coming to the court as witnesses to avoid facing with their violator. The single statement taken from the child victim must be taken in presence of judge, psychologist, pedagogue and representative from the social services in a special screen room. To be a victim of crime of that kind, end to have to testify on court, confronting the violator is very difficult for adults, but even harder for children. The child is embarrassed to talk about what happened. Sometimes the child is feeling guilty, abandoned, scared and lost, it is afraid to disappoint the grownups expectations.
With the use of highest punishments for those who have committed sexual crime over child as punitive measure to help to prevent this felons from repeating their crime. Whit this measure we can isolate the felons and we can contribute in prevention of these crimes and to send a signal for the future similar cases.
We are also demanding responsibility from the management of the state institution for children without parents”11 th October” from Skopje for their negligence for the missing children who end up being victims of rape and one of them was missing for 23 days in captivity by the pedophile Jove K. (40) from the village Sasavarlija, Stip. There must be a primary, secondary and tercial prevention and realization of activities in order to help the victims of sexual crime to resocialize and rehabilitate. The next question on our mind is what is going to happen with the child who was held in captivity raped and maltreated for 23 days? Who will be held responsible for the consequences from that trauma that the child survived?
We also want to distinguish the case with the pedophile T.P. (51) and the sexual abuse that he committed over his step daughter (12) and her friend (12) children mentally disabled which were students in the special elementary school ‘Maca Ovcarova” in Veles. This institution must have an insight for the situation of their students.
Children’s abuse (sexual, economic, physical as well as the other forms of abuse) is serious problem which requires bigger attention, protection and actions on every level. That involves synchronized and mutual action on every relevant factors which are part of the children’s education and care like the family, state institutions citizen’s organizations and mediums.
We are reminding the state institutions that Republic of Macedonia ratified the Convention for the children’s rights and is obligated to respect all the rights coming out of this Convention. The last cases of children’s abuse are example of brutal violation of the children’s rights guaranteed by this Convention. According to the article 34 from this Convention, all the countries cosignatories are obligated to protect the children from all kinds of sexual abuse and sexual maltreating. For that purpose, it is very important that he countries cosignatories are taking all the necessary national, bilateral and multilateral measures for preventing the worse forms of sexual abuse of children.
We consider that is very important to encourage the report of the sexual violence and sexual abuse and to talk about it with the children and their parents. Our data on that matter from our SOS telephone for children and young people 0 800 1 22 22 are telling us that from total 17700 calls in the last 15 years since we opened the line, 9,83% of the calls(1739 calls) are referring to violence and abuse. In 2007 13, 5% of the calls are referring to the worse forms of child abuse. But we assume that the real dark number of the unreported cases is much bigger. World data on that matter are telling us that 70% of the cases of sexual abuse are unreported because the victims or the witnesses are afraid, ashamed or ignorant about what children’s are feeling, or they are afraid of the consequences and the public stigmatization. FIRST CHILDREN’S EMBASSY IN THE WORLD-MEGJASHI is continuously working on this problem, offering psychosocial support and free legal advice and representation.
The parents have a special responsibility in caring, protecting and providing secure childhood for their children. They should pay a special attention of protecting their children from possible abuse. Responsible parenthood is the best prevention of children’s abuse. It is concerning the fact that we are noticing pathology on collective level in our country. There is a fall on the moral values and increase of the cases of pedophilia and child abuse.
We requested the social services to take more active roll in the prevention and supervision of the dysfunctional families. The state should invest in razing new capacities for the social services in order to be more effective in the children’s protection activities. The social services should be more mobile, more effective and to continuously follow the situation for possible abuse in the risk families. They could give a major contribution in the prevention of children’s abuse because they are in direct contact ( or they should be) with the families in crisis. They should play significant roll in resocialization, reintegration and rehabilitation of the children in order to help them to outrun the consequences.
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