A/HRC/16/55 33. Additionally, Ms. Maalla M’jid favoured systematic participation of children in awareness-raising programmes as children were not just victims of sexual exploitation, but also part of the solution; there was scope for information exchange and technical assistance to developing countries regarding mechanisms to facilitate coordination at national, regional and international levels. Some businesses had adopted programmes in the area of social responsibility. Such initiatives should be extended to businesses involved in tourism, the Internet, media and entertainment. In conclusion, despite actions in many countries to combat sexual exploitation against children, much remained to be done and cooperation on this regard had to be intensified. 34. The Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Ms. Maud de BoerBuquicchio, said that everyone had the obligation to ensure that children had access to adequate child-sensitive services and mechanisms guaranteeing their protection, effective preventive measures and adequate responses to sexual violence. She enumerated the measures taken by the Council of Europe to deal with this issue. These included elaborating a convention covering all forms of sexual violence (the Lanzarote Convention); providing guidance to countries to set their own national integrated strategies for the protection of children from violence; mainstreaming children’s rights in a series of areas, including childfriendly social services and health, as well as child participation; and preparing to launch in 2010 a pan-European campaign to combat sexual violence against children. The Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (the Lanzarote Convention) is an international legally binding instrument which is open to ratification by non-European countries. The Policy Guidelines on integrated national strategies for the protection of children from violence, promote the development of a holistic national framework to safeguard children’s rights and protect them from violence. She concluded by describing the work done by the Council of Europe to define child friendly services particularly with regard to justice, social services and health care, and on child participation. 35. According to the Deputy Director of Plan Colombia, Eliana Restrepo, in order to tackle sexual violence, it was important to build a protection culture where values, cultural patterns and variables were taken into account. It was urgent to consider a cultural crossover where the State, civil society, communities, families and children all take part in the design of initiatives and intervene in a holistic and interdependent way. She highlighted that it is important to influence culture and social relationships also through awarenessraising actions. Mass media needed to become allies in educating the population and changing cultures. She indicated that Plan Colombia had trained 1,000 media professionals in recent years, helping them to understand children’s rights and contributing to a more sensitive journalism on sexual violence. 36. Ms. Restrepo also added that it was necessary to strengthen the protective capacities of and the interaction with different actors. The various State institutions dealing with this issue must interact and coordinate. It is important that actions be carried out as interdependent and integral plans and not as sectoral plans, which have limited impact. Additionally, it was important to look for new allies in building protective networks, including the private sector. One example in that regard was the alliance between Plan Colombia and Banco Agrario. The bank committed to train 5,000 employees in the prevention of sexual violence against children and to offer training to its microcredit customers. That alliance would reach 88 per cent of Colombia’s municipalities through its 900 branches. Violence prevention programmes in schools are also essential. The Plan Colombia representative concluded by stating that children could also become active in their own protection if they had access to training programmes that allowed them to identify and tackle risks relating to sexual violence, starting from childhood and continuing throughout their life. Plan Colombia had in fact been able to demonstrate that such 10