A/HRC/34/3 68. In the context of rapidly expanding information and communications technology, OHCHR conducted a full-day meeting during the thirty-first session of the Human Rights Council to identify strategies to protect children against sexual exploitation and abuse. 69. In November, OHCHR organized the fifth annual Forum on Business and Human Rights, highlighting the kind of leadership expected from States and businesses to ensure protection against human rights abuses. The Forum brought together more than 2,000 participants from 140 countries around a three-day programme, including 70 thematic panels, making it the largest global multi-stakeholder event on business and human rights ever held. E. 1. Widening the democratic space Support to civil society, including human rights defenders 70. In October, the Secretary-General announced that the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights would lead the Organization’s efforts to respond to intimidation and reprisals against those cooperating with the United Nations on human rights. This important step followed the raising of serious concerns by the Secretary-General in his report on reprisals (A/HRC/33/19). 71. In his address to the eighth Dublin Platform for human rights defenders, held in November, the High Commissioner pledged that his Office would support efforts to keep civil society space open, including through engagement and assistance by OHCHR country and regional presences to build capacity at the national level and to strengthen the rule of law, and through increased advocacy. 72. OHCHR strengthened protection programmes for civil society through direct monitoring of threats and attacks, provision of technical advice on laws and policies and advocacy, including in Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, Kenya, Mauritania, Myanmar, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Tunisia, as well as in Central America in collaboration with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Following support from OHCHR to the authorities of South Kivu Province, a provincial law on the protection of human rights defenders was adopted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in February. 73. With technical support from OHCHR, the independent high authority for audiovisual communication in Tunisia developed a national barometer for monitoring incitement to hatred, which OHCHR is replicating in Côte d’Ivoire and Morocco. Ahead of the presidential elections in the Gambia, OHCHR organized protection training for human rights defenders. In Thailand, OHCHR continued to support the Ministry of Justice in establishing a working group on protection of human rights defenders. 74. During the reporting period, OHCHR provided assistance to civil society organizations to participate in the work of the human rights mechanisms through specific programmes, including in Bolivia, Honduras, Iraq, Jamaica, Myanmar, the Republic of Korea, Trinidad and Tobago and Tunisia. The OHCHR practical guide Civil Society Space and the United Nations Human Rights System was translated into 19 additional languages. 75. The updated Human Rights: A Handbook for Parliamentarians, originally published in 2005 in acknowledgement of the key role of parliamentarians in the protection of human rights and democracy, was reissued by OHCHR and the Inter-Parliamentary Union in October. OHCHR strengthened the role of parliamentarians in Chile and Uruguay to follow up on recommendations of the United Nations human rights mechanisms. OHCHR also worked jointly with UN-Women and the Economic Community of West African States to 13