At this webinar, participants will learn about the National Child Protection Policy of Sri Lanka, and the process and advocacy efforts of partners, including government, to achieve that policy. By sharing this process, the hosts hope other organisations, governments and parents will have a better understanding of how to push such a policy forward within their own contexts. 

This session, featuring children and young people’s participation, will be held in conjunction with the United Nations High Level Political Forum on 9 July 2021 from 7:30 – 9:00 am.

The session will be sponsored by UNICEF, the coalition of child-focused agencies (ChildFund Alliance, World Vision, Save the Children, Plan International, and SOS Children’s Villages, and Nord Anglia Education.

Building back better, fairer, and greener requires collaboration between nations and generations. The event will feature the experiences and activism of young advocates to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and achieve the SDGs. We will also hear from the Government of Spain on its experience in mainstreaming child rights and child voices in the country's implementation of the SDGs and national plans.

Evidence is clear: parents and the environment at home are central pillars in supporting children’s health and development. The quality of parenting practices is a key determinant of every child’s ability to develop their cognitive, emotional, and social potential and resilience against adversity.

Together, our agencies invite partners to join us in our aim to elevate parenting and family support so that every child, and their family, can receive the support they need for optimal development, thus building human capital in the first two decades of life. 

This will contribute to attaining many SDG targets including 4.2 on early childhood development and 16.2 on ending violence against children. UNICEF estimates that more than one billion children are at risk due to the increased isolation from school closures, the financial hardship of families, and the disruption of child protection, health, education, and other services through the pandemic. Intensified action and amplification of efforts is urgently needed.

During this event, we will present an inter-agency vision for scaling global support for parents and caregivers along with a collective action framework and a call-to-action for governments, implementers, researchers, policymakers, and donors. Explore the full programme of the event here.

This is an affiliate event of the Together to #ENDviolence campaign.

At this event, Future Leaders Initiative SL will explore ways to help parents and caregivers manage their children's behaviour in a positive way, and to help parents and caregivers cope under pressure. Speakers will provide tips to parents and others who are caring for children to minimize violence and promote non-violent parenting; the event will also explore corporal punishment and beliefs from the African lens. 

Fighting OCSEA with new standards and policies, research, knowledge and awareness-raising tools

In the context of the closing of the project, this conference will be an opportunity to share key issues and concrete results of the above mentioned three components by looking at the progress made in:

• WEBINAR 1 (10am - 12pm CET): Tackling OCSEA with improved legislation and policies at national, regional and international level; in this context, the methodology developed in the context of the project to analyse legislative and political gaps will be discussed in the broader context of the work of the Lanzarote Committee and the T-CY gave their role to ensure the effective implementation of the Lanzarote and Budapest Conventions. Progress made by both bodies over the last two years will be discussed jointly to see how it will contribute ultimately also to improving national, regional and international responses to OCSEA. On this occasion, other relevant national Children’s Rights and regional and global Cybercrime projects will be invited to share initiatives to improve the level of implementation of both Conventions
   
• WEBINAR 2 (1:30pm - 13:00pm CET): Understanding OCSEA, in particular with the current context of the pandemic, its trends, challenges and promising practices by looking at the recent findings of the updated version of the Baseline Mapping Report of member states responses to prevent and combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse. The report was updated in the context of the pandemic to seek additional information and data on the potential impact of the lockdown and see whether new information was reliable and available quickly, to identify possible changes in terms of trends and responses and formulate recommendations for improvements to ensure the sustainable impact and use of this research.
   
• WEBINAR 3 (3:30pm - 5:00pm CET): In raising the awareness of children, in particular, very young ones (as from the age of 2) who are increasingly exposed to risks online with parents, carers and professionals working in pre-schools and schools who are not equipped enough to protect children, especially in the new environment which was triggered with the pandemic. A discussion among experts from different sectors and working in this area will be led and framed around ‘Kiko and the Manymes’ video, storybook and tips for parents of children of 4-7 years old.

Join the World Health Organization for the launch of the European Status Report for the Prevention of Violence Against Children. At this event, key findings and recommendations of the report will be explored, along with case studies from Finland, Georgia, Estonia, Portugal, Wales and beyond.

Simultaneous translation into English and Russian will be available.

At this event, hosts will share information related to a project that cleared a substantial proportion of backlogged cases relating to violence against children that were pending in the criminal justice system in Sri Lanka. The audience will have a chance to learn about this project and adopt the methods used to clear cases of violence against children in their own jurisdictions.