A/HRC/16/55 Adolescents (the Rio Declaration). He emphasized in particular the importance of ensuring the full participation of children themselves in all strategies and measures to prevent, respond and monitor violence, in accordance with article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 29. Ms. Villarán of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, in her presentation on national, regional and international effective remedies, said that measures had to address the gap between policies and practices. She mentioned that the Committee, when reviewing the domestic laws of States, noted the lack of a single definition of sexual violence against children. However, at international level, the jurisprudence of the European Court on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court and Commission qualify sexual violence as torture, while international criminal law considers sexual violence as crime against humanity. The United Nations Study on Violence against Children also identified essential aspects to be considered when adopting preventive and protection measures. Therefore, in the creation of new legal instruments, she emphasized, the need to look at all existing international frameworks. 30. Ms. Villarán underlined that the Committee had also identified a number of preventive and protective measures. These included: legal reforms, such as the legal minimum age for marriage, criminal responsibility, sexual consent, as well as for accessing health services without parental consent; public policies and national plans with clear objectives and sufficient resources; measures to address cultural beliefs that condone sexual violence; guaranteeing that the right of the child to be heard; putting in place information systems with disaggregated data; prioritising prevention measures through education and the empowerment of children; and adopting measures to avoid revictimization of the children. 31. The representative of UNICEF, Mr. Karunan, mentioned in his presentation on the empowerment and participation of children that sexual violence against children remained a neglected and hidden issue and only recently had the magnitude of the problem begun to attract the attention of policymakers and the public. He provided a few examples of childled initiatives to combat sexual violence against children in Cambodia, India and Bangladesh. In this regard he underlined that practice standards on child participation to combat sexual violence should include an ethical approach to participation, participation that is relevant and voluntary, a child-friendly environment, and an effective follow-up and evaluation system to monitor progress and assess outcomes and impact of participation. He concluded by highlighting that children themselves were the best advocates against sexual violence; that child-led initiatives should become an integral part of policies and protection mechanisms to combat sexual violence against children; and that all efforts to curb and eradicate sexual violence must have the child’s best interest at the centre, as well as children’s agency and empowerment as central guiding principles. 32. The Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, Najat Maalla M’jid, when speaking about the follow-up to the Rio Congress and its Call for Action, noted that, despite considerable progress made, sexual exploitation of children and adolescents through the Internet and new technologies, via child trafficking and sexual tourism was still growing. Referring to the implementation of the Rio Plan of Action, Ms. Maalla M’Jid noted that States had still not universally ratified a number of pertinent international and regional instruments; some bodies of national law had not defined clearly nor had they criminalized all forms of sexual exploitation of children; many countries did not have mechanisms that children could access to report cases of sexual exploitation; work remained to be done with regard to putting in place inter and intrasectoral strategies to reinforce national protection services or to create new ones to provide all victims of sexual violence and their families with economic and psychological support and the means for social reintegration. 9