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	Vatican to Submit Child Rights Report This Fall SOS Children's Villages June 24, 2011 http://www.soschildrensvillages.ca/News/News/child-charity-news/Pages/Vatican-Child-Rights-Report-784.aspx For the first time in 14 years, the Vatican will submit a report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The report will be submitted this fall, likely in September or October, a Vatican official has said. On Monday, a representative of the Vatican to the United Nations (UN) confirmed that the Holy See will submit a report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The Vatican has not filed a report in 14 years and was slated to submit a progress report to the Committee in 1997. Typically, reports are filed every 5 years. The Vatican's 2011 report will be filed sometime in the fall, likely in September or October, said the country's envoy to Geneva, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi. The Vatican was among the first nations to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Article 43 of the CRC, first adopted in 1989, created the Committee on the Rights of the Child to review the progress made toward fulfilling the provisions of the CRC. As part of their monitoring and reporting requirements under article 44, state parties to the CRC are required to submit reports on the measures they have adopted to fulfill the rights of children enshrined in the CRC. At a press conference last Saturday, the Vatican also announced its ongoing plan to use information communications technologies to fight child abuse. In February 2010, the church will support an international conference on the sexual abuse of children by clergy members. The conference will be held at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Italy. The specific technology in question is a new e-learning portal that will help protect the victims of sexual abuse and prevent any further abuse from occurring. The new e-learning portal will be launched during the conference, under the theme,"Toward Healing and Renewal." Through this portal, which will feature content published in German, English, French, Spanish and Italian, churches will be able to design and share guidelines for child protection in addition to information for victims and to those who must deal with cases of child abuse by clergy members. "The e-learning center will work with medical institutions and universities to develop a constant response to the problems of sexual abuse," said the Monsignor Klaus Peter Franzl of the archdiocese of Munich. For instance, there is psychological stress associated with this form of abuse. Baroness Sheila Hollins is a member of Britain's House of Lords. She will also be one of the key speakers at February's conference. According to Ms. Hollins, people who have been abused by clergy members carry around two types of shame: shame for having been abused and shame for not coming forward with the truth. While some people are able to keep their faith, others may experience a spiritual crisis as well.
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