CENTRE FOR EUROPEAN INITIATIVES AND RESEARCH IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

Beyond any evaluation of the process, what I would like to highlight is how a situation that was to have considerable media impact--we surely all remember the case of the girl who suffered severe abuse that has left her with irreparable aftereffects--triggered an action that led the administrations intervening in that area to become involved in a network intervention process that was to foster an exchange of information and the development of trust among the professionals that were a part of it. These were all fundamental elements in the development of a greater capacity to intervene that made their work more effective and responded to the fundamental objective of the entire process: the defence of the rights of minors, and particularly those of the unprotected and vulnerable.

We too often hear of the vulnerability of children and how they are victims of situations which they neither provoke nor control, but as a consequence of which their lives will be marked forever, if not cut short. The responsibility for using resources and mobilising individuals in favour of guaranteeing their rights is that of society as a whole, and the volume and quality of the resources must assuredly be an indicator of the maturity of a society and, beyond all doubt, that of its administrations. But these resources should not be contingent on the presence of a particular situation requiring intervention or of an emergency that puts us on alert. While I do not want to fall into a cliché, the degree of care that we take of our children, and thus the investment made in education, health, recreation, etc., is a fundamental element by which to measure our capacity to build a society with a future for all.