Day 3: ICDI provides a workshop about preventing and responding to child abuse

“Sweeping child abuse under the carpet is unacceptable. It is dangerous for children, but also dangerous for organisations like ours”.

This was one of the conclusions of Badiul Alam Majumdar, Country Director of The Hunger Project, Bangladesh following the workshop about preventing and responding to child abuse in NGOs, which ICDI facilitated today. Badiul continues, “the workshop was a wake-up call for us. We are a large organization and have more than 100,000 volunteers currently active in all parts of Bangladesh. We need to develop a comprehensive child protection policy as soon as possible”.

Emebet Mulugeta Seifu and Kidanu Gebre Deyass, from Education for Sustainable Development in Ethiopia also took part in the workshop. “We already have a code of conduct for all our staff and for the partners we are working with. What we learned in this workshop is that strengthening the safeguarding measures to prevent child abuse perpetuated by our staff or associates must be a priority to ensure a safe enviroment and make girls’ future brighter – girls are not instruments to be used and abused, especially by those who are supposed to support them”.