Closely related to the Council of Europe Strategy for the Rights of the Child (2016-2021) and the Policy guidelines on integrated national strategies for the protection of children from violence, the Group of Experts on responses to violence against children (CAHENF-VAC) held its second meeting in Strasbourg on 18-19 September 2018. The meeting was chaired by Ms Maria-Andriani Kostopoulou, Chair of the Ad-Hoc Committee on the Rights of the Child (CAHENF).

The CAHENF-VAC held exchanges of views with  Ms Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, UN Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, Ms Tijana Borovčanin-Marić, Representative of the Lanzarote Committee and Ms Eloïse Di Gianni, representative of the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children.

Inspired by their presentations, the Group of Experts approved the final draft of a questionnaire for a survey involving all CAHENF delegations to take stock of:

• explicit national actions towards target 16.2 in the framework of the SDG Agenda 2030,
• the state of play regarding the development of integrated national strategies on violence against children,
• specific actions to eliminate violence against children in different settings, and
• good practice examples by Member States, civil society and private sectors.

Besides, the CAHENF-VAC members agreed upon the creation of an clearinghouse, which would be an online platform for the exchange of information between countries on:

• integrated national strategies and good practices examples of the protection of children from violence,
• the international framework towards the elimination of violence against children - the SDG process,
• Council of Europe standards and tools relating to violence against children, and various data, studies and reports.

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Group of Experts on responses to violence against children (CAHENF-VAC)

Agenda of the meeting