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Jeddah: Wrapping up the first Saudi child abuse conference here yesterday, participants called for a mechanism to tackle the rising child abuse cases in the kingdom through the establishment of a national information centre.
The conference underlined the need to compel all those working in the health field, in both the government and private sector, to pass information about any suspected case of child abuse to the concerned working teams in all regions of the kingdom.
These working teams should report such cases to the National Family Safety Programme, which was formed under the umbrella of King Abdul Aziz Medical City.
The conference, titled Child abuse: advanced training for medical professionals, was organised by the King Abdul Aziz Medical City, representing the Health Affairs Department at the Saudi National Guard, in cooperation with the National Family Safety Programme. There was a good response to the conference, which was aimed at educating Saudi society and medical staff about the dangers of child abuse and its harmful effect on generations to come.
Participants put forward proposals aimed at curbing the increase in child abuse cases. These included child abuse as a subject in the curricula of health and medical colleges, holding annual conferences to review the implementation of measures taken to prevent child abuse and the provision of intensive training for hospital paediatricians.
Participants at the one-day event also recommended the formation of a medical team, specialised in treating child abuse cases, in all major hospitals in the kingdom.
"The team should comprise doctors, sociology specialists, psychiatrists and nurses, and all the other hospitals in the region can report child abuse cases attended to by them to this team," the conference said in its recommendation.
The conference also underlined the need to establish a 24-hour free hotline service to handle various aspects of child abuse cases, such as receiving complaints of child abuse, rendering support to the victims and transferring cases to the concerned medical team.
Participants also called for an intensive awareness campaign against child abuse to be launched, targeting all of society. Activities and programmes, including seminars, training camps and workshops, distribution of leaflets, publishing of articles in newspapers and magazines, and broadcasting programmes on radio and television would be part of the campaign.
Demand for a special allocation of funds for carrying out such programmes was also raised at the conference.
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