Under the patronage of Her Royal Highness Princess Adela bint Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, President of both the National Family Safety Program (NFSP) and the Supervisory Board of the Child Helpline, Child Helpline Regional Conference ( 116 111 ) "A child talks ... everyone listens " was inaugurated on Monday, 16th of December 2013 at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS) Convention Center; with the presence of His Excellency – Dr. Bandar Al Knawy, NGHA Chief Executive Officer, President of King Saud Bin Abdulaziz for Health Sciences and the General Supervisor of the Family Safety Program Dr. Bandar Al Knawy in collaboration with the Child Helpline International (CHI ).
Her Royal Highness Princess Adela has welcomed the attendees and participants through a speech in which she noted that "the preventive aspect of the abuse protection system is one of the main axes on which the National Family Safety Program has worked on since its establishment in November 2005. During the program’s phases, it has achieved many of its highlighted objectives, most importantly the establishment of a toll-free Child Helpline (1116111) as a national project in 2011". She added: " that violence towards children is a global phenomenon, and according to the statistics of the Child Helpline in Saudi Arabia, the number of incoming calls continues to increase, surpassing 60 thousand calls in the past year, mostly after the Child Helpline Awareness Campaign carried out by the Ministry of Education ... where violence cases were about 8% of the total incoming consultations".
On his part, HE Dr. Bandar Al Knawy said: "The conference aims to discuss the challenges, plans, international Helplines expertise as well as to provide an opportunity for all partners to compete in providing innovative solutions and contributions to support children and adolescents in all Saudi Arabia’s regions", pointing out that National Guard Health Affairs has supported the NFSP program since its launching to achieve its humanitarian objectives.
Furthermore, The Executive Director of the National Family Safety Program, Dr. Maha Al Muneef said that since the actual launching phase in 2013, and given the scope of services provided by the Child Helpline which receives calls from all over the Kingdom, the working hours has been extended up to 12 hours, seven days a week, to allow for providing instant advice and services to the largest number possible from callers in need through a qualified specialist team.
On another note, the Child Helpline Regional Conference is privileged to have a local , Arab and international participation of leading specialists in the child protection field from various government and private agencies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia such as the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, the Saudi Telecom Company (STC), the Emirate Of Riyadh Province, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the National Society for Human Rights and the Communications and Information Technology Commission as well as international participation from the GCC countries alongside several Arab and Western countries .
Last but not least, the conference (over a 3 day period) will discuss a number of important topics, notably: children’s rights and the role of the Child Helpline in reinforcing it, the role of the government and private sectors in supporting the Child Helpline, statistics and data collection systems and their role in promoting Child Helplines, Arab countries’ experiences with Child Helplines, the mechanisms of reaching out to the child: the challenges and obstacles, communication systems and their role in supporting the helpline and the role of children and youth in Child Helpline: hopes and aspirations .