A/HRC/13/46 1. Participation in the twentieth Pan-American Congress on Children and Adolescents 60. In September 2009, the Special Representative participated in the twentieth PanAmerican Congress on Children and Adolescents organized by the Organization of American States and the Inter-American Children’s Institute and hosted in Lima by the Government of Peru. With high-level participants from the Organization’s member States, as well as from national independent institutions for children’s rights, non-governmental organizations and academics from the Americas, the Congress was held in commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and of the eighth anniversary of the Inter-American Children’s Institute. Great attention was devoted to investment in public policies for the realization of children’s rights, including the protection of children from violence. Violence against children was centre stage in the official sessions and the formal dialogue between ministers and high authorities, and the Special Representative and the Rapporteur on the Rights of the Child of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Professor Paulo Sergio Pinheiro. 61. The Congress was a strategic forum to promote and review progress in the Americas on follow-up to the recommendations of the study, and to launch the report on corporal punishment and human rights of children and adolescents, recently issued by the Office of the Rapporteur on the Rights of the Child of the Inter-American Commission.6 This important report builds upon the United Nations study and calls on member States of the Organization of American States to place explicit and absolute legal bans on the use of corporal punishment in all settings; adopt preventive, educational, and other measures to ensure the eradication of this form of violence and promote positive and non-violent alternatives; and make the Americas a region free of child corporal punishment by 2011. 62. The Pan-American Congress was preceded by a civil society forum and included, for the first time, a Pan-American Forum on Children and Adolescents. The Children’s Forum helped to place the question of child participation high on the agenda for the Congress, showing young participants’ crucial capacity to identify concerns and anticipate solutions to address them. Violence against children was a key topic discussed by the young participants who also identified this phenomenon as their most pressing concern. 63. The Congress laid the ground for a solid future institutional collaboration with regional forums and institutions in the Americas, including the Inter-American Children’s Institute and, particularly, the Rapporteur on the Rights of the Child of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, with whom a strategic framework of cooperation was developed for the protection of children from all forms of violence. 2. Regional meeting on the role of parliamentarians in preventing and eliminating violence against children 64. The Congress followed an important regional meeting on the role of parliamentarians to prevent and eliminate violence against children, hosted by the National Assembly of Costa Rica and supported by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and UNICEF. Representatives from national parliaments adopted strong recommendations for national follow-up to the United Nations study, including by holding parliamentarian sessions to monitor and advance follow-up to the study’s recommendations, promoting law reform to introduce an explicit ban on all forms of violence against children, and ensuring adequate resource allocation for child-related public policies. 65. The key dimensions addressed by the meeting in Costa Rica were raised by the Special Representative in her official meetings with parliamentarians in the region, 6 GE.10-10640 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, document OEA/Ser.L/V/II.135. 15