Ammon News - Jordan will celebrate Sunday, the World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse, which falls on June 6 annually, as a national awareness occasion to enhance children protection.

Secretary-General of the National Council for Family Affairs (NCFA), Mohammad Miqdadi, said this day is an "important" event at the national level to identify the achievements made by the Kingdom in the field of child protection from abuse, Petra reported.

This day is also dedicated to increasing awareness of children's rights protection procedures and reducing violence in this regard, in addition to reviewing periodically the achievements by national legislation and development services, he pointed out.

The occasion, he noted, is also an opportunity to study the challenges related to the work environment concerned with protecting the family and children from violence and developing solutions to achieve the best child-family well-being, according to Petra.

Jordan, with the King's support, attaches "remarkable" importance to the childhood sector and places it a priority, whether at the level of services provided to children, or legislation that affirms their rights, he said.

Jordan, he noted, was one of the first countries that signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child and issued a law to ratify it, as well as its effective national legislation, which enhance children protection, and affirms their rights.

Noting many challenges facing the family and child protection network, he said lack of human resources and trained specialized competencies top the hurdles in this regard, along the financial challenges.

Covid-19 pandemic posed a "great" challenge to workers in protecting the family from violence, due to difficulties caused from restricting mobility and suspending economic activities, which led to financial and living difficulties, increased unemployment rates, job losses, and education disruption, which led to a rise in reports of domestic violence cases, according to the official.

To mitigate the crisis's impact on the protection stakeholders, he said the NCFA worked to overcome these obstacles facing sponsors of children’s rights to carry out their tasks to the "fullest" extent and also developed a health protocol for nurseries to continue their role and help families and working housewives.
The council, in cooperation with UNICEF, worked on developing many internal procedural manuals for Jordanian ministries and institutions to deal with cases of violence, he noted.