The Child Protection Officer for the Vanuatu Government says more effort must be put into freeing children from violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect from the country.
Jenny Ligo was recently appointed the role within the Womens affairs ministry and is working in collaboration with NGOs including World Vision and UNICEF on the United Nations Convention on the rights of children.
She says the Ministry of Health and UNICEF have compiled a report on concerning the main problems children say they are encountering, including violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect.
"Like in schools, they feel that they're abused by teachers and some of this abuse is for example corporate punishment. And sometimes this is agreed to by parents for a teacher to smack a child. And then at home, they feel that they're still neglected by their parents."
Jenny Ligo says the problems are widespread.
