The Ministry of Youth and Children has presented the institutional campaign Signs that could mean a lot, with the aim of raising awareness against violence against children and adolescents.
Institutional campaign to make violence against children visible: ‘Signs that could mean a lot’.
The campaign encourages people to pay attention to the signs that can give away these types of situations, which are often invisible or even normalised.
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Youth and Children presents an institutional campaign to make violence against children visible
Violence against children and adolescents is often minimised or relegated to the private sphere. They have a strong impact on the physical, emotional and social development of children and adolescents, and can limit the life projects of those who suffer them.
The Minister for Youth and Children, Sira Rego, said: ‘The silence surrounding the violence suffered by a child or adolescent speaks of society as a whole, of our lack of care and respect for children’s rights. To break this invisibility and combat it requires a commitment at all levels, from institutions to those who work or spend time with children, including families.
Children and young people who experience violence often find it difficult to put words to what is happening to them, especially younger people. The campaign encourages paying attention to signs that may indicate that someone is suffering from violence, such as sudden changes in behaviour, uncontrolled fears, somatisation, mutism, avoidance of people or places they used to like, fear of undressing, self-harm or violent play.
‘Just as society has realised that male violence against women is unacceptable and that it must be expelled from all public and private spheres, we must act forcefully to eradicate violence against children and adolescents’, added the minister.
Rego presented the campaign together with the Director General for the Rights of Children and Adolescents, Sandra de Garmendia, who stressed that regardless of whether it is physical or psychological violence and who perpetrates it against them, violence against children and adolescents is ‘unacceptable’.
‘They violate their fundamental rights, recognised in article 39 of the Spanish Constitution and in various international treaties such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child,’ the director general stressed.
Signs that could say a lot follows in the wake of two previous institutional campaigns, promoted by the Directorate General for Children and Adolescents. The campaigns are part of the efforts to eradicate violence against children promoted by the Organic Law for the Comprehensive Protection of Children and Adolescents against Violence ( LOPIVI).
