|© UNICEF Madagascar/2006/ Sheikh| |Haingo and her mother have
sought help through the Commission for the Rights of the Child,
an organization that protects children from abuse in Mahajanga,
Madagascar.| By Misbah M. Sheikh The UN Secretary-General’s
Study on Violence against Children is a landmark effort to
provide a detailed global picture of the nature, extent and
causes of such violence and act to prevent it. The final report
will be presented to the General Assembly on 11 October. Here is
the first in a series of related stories. MAHAJANGA, Madagascar,
6 October 2006 – Haingo (not her real name) is 16 years old. A
few months ago, while her mother was at the market selling
handicrafts and her younger brother was at school, she was raped
in her own home. “I knew instinctively that there was something
wrong about the way he forced me,” she recalled. “When my mother
came home, I told her. She was very upset and worried. My mother
was afraid that my future would be ruined.” Now Haingo is one of
306 survivors