A/HRC/16/56 Annex Overview of international and regional standards and commitments concerning child-sensitive counselling, reporting and complaint mechanisms to address incidents of violence against children, including sexual violence and exploitation 1. International standards 1. Important international standards frame the development of counselling, reporting and complaint mechanisms. These include the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocols, and significant regional human rights instruments. 2. The Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes the right to freedom from violence in its many forms and promotes a comprehensive system of child protection to address this phenomenon; it calls on violence prevention, on victims’ identification, treatment, recovery and reintegration, as well as on the referral and investigation of incidents of violence. Several articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child address children’s protection from violence, particularly articles 19, 24, 28, 34 to 36, 37 and 39. 3. The normative foundation provided by the Convention and its Protocols has generated significant legal reforms in countries in all regions aiming at the legal prohibition of all forms of violence against children, in any setting where violence may occur. Legislation is also needed to recognize children’s right to complaint procedures and remedies to address breaches of their rights and to support children’s access to courts and independent children’s rights institutions, such as an Ombudsman or a person of a comparable status. Children should know who these persons are, how to access them and what can be expected from this process.66 4. This is an area addressed by core international human rights standards and to which the Committee on the Rights of the Child has devoted continued attention. In its most recent General Comment on The Right of the Child to Freedom from all Forms of Violence67, the Committee included importance guidance on these mechanisms, strongly recommending that “all States develop safe, well-publicized, confidential and accessible support mechanisms for children, their representatives and others to report violence against children, including through the use of 24-hour toil free hotlines and other information and communication technologies. The establishment of reporting mechanisms includes: providing appropriate information to facilitate the making of complaints; participation in investigations and court proceedings; developing protocols which are appropriate for different circumstances and made widely known to children and the general public; establishing support services for children and families; and training and providing on-going support for personnel to receive and advance the information received through reporting systems. Reporting mechanisms must be coupled with, and should present themselves as, help-oriented services offering public health and social support rather than as triggering responses which are primarily punitive. The children’s right to be heard and to have their views taken seriously has to be respected. In every country reporting of instances, suspicion 66 67 24 General Comment 12, CRC/L/GC/12. General Comment 13 adopted in February 2011.