On 3 November 2011, together with Telefono Azzurro, the Pediatric Hospital Bambino Gesù and the Mayo Clinic, we co-hosted a forum in Rome designed to build awareness and create an action plan for world leaders to address child sexual abuse and exploitation as a public health crisis.
“Each child is precious. Each child is endowed with basic human rights.”Declaration of Rome
Participants agreed on what became known as the Declaration of Rome, a statement of principles having to do with protecting children and identifying the abuses to which they are subject. The Declaration of Rome endorsed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, with reference to specific articles, along with the Convention’s Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography.
Those in attendance stressed the threat that the Internet represents and called for private companies to join law enforcement and others combating the abuse of children.
The targeted recommendations of the Declaration of Rome include a call for religious and political leaders to join in the global movement to protect the world’s children.