Latvia

A new study on corporal punishment and school bullying by Save the Children Sweden aims at exploring measures taken to prevent physical and humiliating punishment of children and bullying and to build the case for legal provisions, public education and adequate protection systems. It covers six countries; Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden, and the St. Petersburg region of the Russian Federation.

Just after the conference in Riga, which took place between 8^th and 10^th November, the participants of the “Childhood without Abuse” project went to the Center Against Abuse “Dardedze”. During this site visit they got acquainted with all the programmes and activities of the organization and met the children living in the shelter run by “Dardedze”.

Between 8^th and 10^th of November 2007 in Riga there took place an international conference under the title “Child as a participant of legal procedures in Eastern Europe”. Although there were mainly Latvians participating in this conference, there came also representatives of all the countries participating in the “Childhood without Abuse” project.

The Latvian Children Hotline was established on February 1, 2006 with the aim to give a psychological help to children and teenagers who are in difficult situations. This goal – to hear out children and teenagers, learning them to speak about themselves and trust others – is still the most important work of the Hotline.