Report from the Medjashi SOS-phone

Violence against children is growing constantly

 

The violence against children in the families, at school, on the street, etc. is growing constantly , report the data from the work of the SOS-phone of the First Children Embassy in the World, Medjashi – 0800 12222. A team of volunteers, psychologists, pedagogues and social workers answer the phone every day, and according to them, the number of reported cases of violence is constantly growing. The phone-line has been operating for 13 years now, and it has been free since May last year, thanks to the cooperation of the Embassy with the Macedonian Telecommunications. Most of the people who call are children and young people, usually female, the motive for calling (in 18.5% of the cases) being abuse and violence of any kind: physical, psychological and sexual. Large percent of the young people, 16.2, call about the inter-sexual relations, 10.3 percent about problems related to the psycho-social, mental and physical health and 9.2 percent call due to problems in the family.

There were 592 female and 320 male callers, most of which were from Skopje (63.5%), then Prilep (15.6%), Bitola (12.5%) and Ohrid (2%).

This year in the work of the SOS-line, a new column was introduced – commercial exploitation, prostitution, pedophilia and …where so far 35 calls (3.8% of the calls) have been registered.

So far, more than 15,000 children and young people have called on the Medjashi SOS-phone. The free SOS-phone operates every weekday from 8 am to 8:30 pm. A psychological counseling centre started operating this year as part of “Medjashi”, where the young people can discuss their problems in a direct contact with a psychologist every day from 4:30 pm to 8:30 pm.

 

S.N.