A training course entitled "The role of school counsellors in protecting children from sexual exploitation"

Within the activities of the project "Protecting children from sexual exploitation", the project team held a training course entitled "The role of school counsellors in protecting children from sexual exploitation" in the Centre's hall at the Gaza branch.
The course was attended by a group of department heads and counsellors at the Ministry of Education. Professor Samir Qouta, of the psychology department at the Islamic University, addressed the phenomenon of sexual exploitation and its negative effects on children at the emotional, mental and social levels. He also mentioned some mechanisms for identifying and assessing the cases of children exposed to harassment, prevention methods at their three levels, and the appropriate intervention mechanisms.
For her part, Mrs. Najat Al-Jubairi, the project coordinator, explained that this course comes to increase counsellors' awareness of this phenomenon, particularly after its spread was observed, and to make known the ways and mechanisms that must be followed when such cases are discovered among pupils, especially as pupils spend half their day at school.
At the end of the meeting, those present offered a set of recommendations, among them the affirmation of conveying this information and spreading it to pupils to make them aware of the subject, the need to activate the child protection network, and in addition bringing perpetrators before the courts to be punished.