First Russia-US childhood protection forum to open in Buryatia

ULAN-UDE, August 1 (Itar-Tass) -- The first Russian-US childhood
protection forum will open in Buryatia on Monday. Russian experts from the
working group for civil society under the Medvedev-Obama Presidential
Commission initiated a large-scale bilateral discussion on the topical
domestic and international problems of childhood protection.
"More than 100 participants in the forum, particularly state officials
and child rights commissioners, specialists of state-run and non-profit
organizations, scientists and experts, will discuss the approaches to the
protection of child rights in Russia and the United States, will share the
working experience to avert a cruel attitude to children, the support and
rehabilitation of the family, the adoption of underage orphans and the
counteraction to child's pornography and prostitution," a source in the
organizing committee of the forum told Itar-Tass.
Buryatia's President Vyacheslav Nagovitsyn heads the organizing
committee of the forum. "Such a forum had no equals, the US and our
country have a little experience of bilateral debates on this problem, but
Buryatia did not just agree to host this forum, but is also ready to make
it regular, because the republic has some achievements in the protection
of children from a cruel attitude," he noted. "These achievements are
linked with a tough supervision of unfavourable families and envisage the
abandonment of orphanages in the future as an institution for the
protection of children and their replacement with adoptive families,"
Nagovitsyn noted.
Russian Child Rights Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov, Russian Presidential
Representative in the Siberian Federal District Viktor Tolokonsky, Project
Manager of US Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Protection Lou Ann Holland will participate in the forum. "The
forum will doubtlessly contribute to the spread of the most efficient
practices of assistance to children in cruel attitude cases and a better
social orphanage prevention system," Viktor Tolokonsky said.
The forum will focus on the child protection activities of civil
organizations. The forum will last until August 6.