The state continues to fail child victims of sexual abuse. To prevent child sexual abuse cases, the authorities must offer assistance to minors who give signals or risk becoming victims of sexual exploitation immediately after these seek help from the competent bodies, child rights experts such as psychologists, journalists and lawyers said in a press club meeting entitled “Sexually exploited children and lost confidence in those who are obliged to protect them”, IPN reports.
Executive director of the International Center “La Strada” Ana Revenco said the Moldovan authorities are far from providing programs that would be useful to children and would protect their interests. The state continues to fail the child victims of sexual exploitation, while many of such specialists as social assistants and police officers ignore the situations of risk faced by these children. “Today the system is built so as to satisfy the needs of the system, not of the children,” she stated.
According to Ana Revenco, prompt intervention is needed to restore confidence in specialists and help the children who were affected by sexual abuse. The protection system and the specialists must offer assistance not only to children who were sexually exploited, but also to their families.
Programs coordinator at the National Center for Child Abuse Prevention Rodica Coretshi said the authorities should not only be informed about cases of child sexual abuse, but should also inform themselves. In such cases, the initial assessment of the situation is very important and the specialists should discuss what happened initially with children, in the absence of parents, as the abuser can be from their family.
The press club meeting “Sexually exploited children and lost confidence in those who are obliged to protect them” was staged by the Journalistic Investigations Center and the International Center for Women Rights Protection and Promotion “La Strada”.
