The World Health Organization has come up with new resolutions to ensure the health and well-being of children.
In an update from the Seventy-fourth World Health Assembly on 29 May 2021, the resolutions on Ending violence against children through health systems strengthening and multi-sectoral approaches aims to strengthen health sector capacity to prevent and respond to violence against children.
“The new resolution invites countries to scale-up the implementation of two WHO-led technical packages, INSPIRE: Seven strategies for ending violence against children and RESPECT women: a framework for preventing violence against women, developed to help countries achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) on ending violence against children (SDG 16.2) and violence against women and girls (SDG 5.2),” read the update.
Every year, about 1 billion children are affected by physical, sexual or psychological violence, suffering injuries, disabilities and death as well as the negative impact of witnessing violence between parents or caregivers.
The health sector plays a major role in documenting the extent of the problem of violence against children; delivering and monitoring prevention approaches and providing services to mitigate the consequences of exposure to violence.
“In addition to the immediate and lifelong harmful consequences to individuals and families, violence against children undermines investments in health and education and erodes the productive capacity of future generations. COVID-19-related stay-at-home measures have highlighted children’s vulnerability to violence within family settings,” read the update.
The first-ever Global status report on preventing violence against children was in 2020 and measured countries’ progress on preventing and responding to violence against children. The report highlighted substantial achievements at global, regional and country levels, while also emphasizing an urgent need to accelerate prevention efforts if the SDG targets to end violence are to be achieved.
The resolution invites the WHO Secretariat to prepare the second and third global status reports on violence against children in 2025 and 2030.
