The illumination of buildings on 19 November is the culmination of the nationwide social campaign “Childhood without Abuse” organised by over 20 non-governmental organisations gathered in the National Coalition for the Protection of Children. The campaign is to highlight the issue of child abuse and to voice support for their safe childhood. This event is a symbol of objection against harming minors and solidarity with their right to protection.
These efforts converge with one of NIK’s priorities which is to strive for improvement in citizens’ living conditions. Domestic abuse, especially against children, is a socially critical issue, repeatedly highlighted by NIK in its audits. In April this year during a press conference the Supreme Audit Office of Poland presented the results of its planned audit about the Prevention of domestic violence.
The NIK audit results revealed that in case of the most vulnerable persons: children, the elderly and persons with disabilities the biggest problem is underestimation of the scale of domestic abuse. It needs to be underlined that local programmes and systems for the prevention of domestic abuse and support for its victims should be developed only based on a reliable diagnosis. Those programmes and systems may not be schematic or superficial but respond to real needs. By assumption, such programmes should foster systemic solutions of the problem, serve as a source of information, recommendations and guidelines used when taking action but also when developing and executing assumptions of other documents on domestic abuse.
The World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse has been commemorated for 13 years.
