A/HRC/43/40 with the grave nature of offences related to the sale and sexual exploitation of children. Furthermore, very few States criminalize grooming as a stand-alone criminal offence. B. Holistic approach to prevention and response mechanisms 1. Comprehensive child protection strategies, including comprehensive care, recovery and reintegration 95. In addition to adequate legal frameworks, States must put in place comprehensive, evidence-based child protection systems to effectively address the multiple manifestations of the sale and sexual exploitation of children. Given the complexity and scale of the problem, an overarching policy framework should guide different sectors to ensure coordination between the legal and policy mechanisms. 96. Currently, most existing strategies have been largely driven by fragmented policies and insufficiently coordinated child protection systems. Focusing on one manifestation of the sale and sexual exploitation of children, such as trafficking, can weaken coordination efforts to address other problems. 97. Given the overwhelming scale of these multifaceted phenomena, States can address the problem more effectively by tackling the root causes and risk factors. Efficiency of comprehensive child protection systems at the national level must be further enhanced by supporting collaboration between different sectors, including the private sector, and overseas operating companies and foreign enforcement agencies. 98. With regard to the establishment of comprehensive, rights-based and child-centred care, recovery and reintegration programmes, 68 there is a need to establish holistic childsensitive support that offers integrated services ranging from immediate medical assistance and psychological support to legal aid and long-term reintegration through, inter alia, education, vocational training and life skills. Furthermore, existing child protection systems often lack the required safeguards to prevent system-induced trauma, which deepens the suffering of the victim. Other failures in care and recovery programmes include frequent blaming of child victims and gender discrimination leading to the marginalization of certain child victims, such as boys and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex children. 99. Even though there are numerous positive examples of first response services, there is a significant gap in medium- to long-term care for child victims of sexual exploitation. The importance of appropriate and sustained funding and resourcing of care and recovery programmes cannot be overstated. Of particular interest is the development of life projects for child victims that ensure that they receive individualized plans adapted to their specific needs. 100. Promising practices such as the children’s house model (Barnahus) in Iceland have been promoted as a multidisciplinary and multi-agency approach that offers immediate support and a referral mechanism to comprehensive services for the child victims. 69 However, in most cases, care and recovery services provided to child victims suffer from insufficient funding, inadequate staffing, lack of oversight, lack of training and support for the front-line workers, and poor communication and coordination among the various actors. Many children continue to be neglected due to the inadequacy of legal provisions, data collection and the process of identifying and rehabilitating victims of sexual exploitation. Centralized databases for case management are rare, which means that most child victims are neither identified nor linked to services. 101. Recovery programmes focused on developing life projects for child victims are extremely important. The model of individualized care and recovery programmes adapted to children’s needs is also fundamental, as it entails the empowerment of the child victim. Regular monitoring and assessment of these programmes are important to ensure that the 68 69 16 See OHCHR, “Care and recovery of child victims”. Available at www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Children/Pages/CareAndRecovery.aspx. See the submissions from the Lanzarote Committee and the Special Representative and Coordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.