The Institute for Women’s Rights of Moldova helped children better know their rights. Institute Director Elena Protenco said at the Tuesday press conference at Infotag that the project “We will stop child abuse together!” lasted six months – from April till October 2014.

 

“In the project participated over 200 girls aged 14-16 from socially vulnerable families, boarding schools, as well as representatives of ethnic minorities and those, whose parents went abroad. Children also got acknowledged where they can address for help and protection in case of violence, to protect their rights”, noted Protenco.

 

According to her, 4 seminars have been conducted in different localities from Moldova, as well as trainings and meetings, where children were told about types of violence, methods of its combating, as well as about how to protect oneself.

 

“Besides, information booklets were published, as well as the book “International Instruments to Combat Domestic Violence”, issued in a number of 1 thousand copies, which were distributed all across Moldova”, said the project coordinator.

 

She noted that “the project aims to form negative attitude towards manifestations of child violence and to contribute to the growth of children and youth’s knowledge about methods of combating violence for reducing the number of injured children”.

 

“Summing up the project, it can be said that the purpose was achieved and the level of knowledge of children, in particular girls, grew. According to the Education Ministry data, over 6.3 thousand cases of child violence have been registered in 3Q2013, which is 2.5 thousand more in comparison with 2Q2013. Also, only 23% of children, who became victims of violence, are announcing about this to the law enforcement, the fact that considerably complicates the problem solving, because other cases remain unknown”, underlined Protenco.

 

Director of the Institute urged authorities, the NGO and media representatives “to contribute to combating violence and reducing the number of cases in order to solve the problem together”.

 

The project “We will stop child abuse together!”, costs US$5 thousand and was financed by the Ukrainian Women’s Fund.