 More than one and a half billion people will be victims of crime this year. There are many types of crime victims. Some are more vulnerable because they are weaker or have limited resources. Two-thirds of all people in big cities have been victimized by crime at least once in the past five years. The effects of crime and the poor are particularly devastating. 400,000 people die every year due to violent crime. That victimization by common crime has almost become statistically a normal occurrence in the life of today's citizens. Rubbery in Latin America is eight times higher than in Europe and North America. Homicide and kidnapping are predominantly the scourges of developing countries. Young males are the primary risk group of street violence. Incarcerated youth are often victimized again in custodial institutions. Half a million children are in jail around the world. While violence against women has been accepted as a serious issue for some time, violence and abuse against older women is often regarded simply as elder. More than 12,000 women are killed each year in Russia as a result of domestic violence, one every 45 minutes. The family or ethnic community often covers up domestic violence. 100,000 women and girls are killed by their families annually in so-called honor crimes. A case of child abuse is reported in the United States every 10 seconds. There is widespread corporal punishment of children, which is indeed part of the cycles of violence. Many of our offenders have been terribly, were terribly abused. According to the World Health Organization, gender-based violence accounts for more death than disability among women between 15 and 44 years old, than the combined effects of cancer, malaria, traffic injuries and war. Two men heard my legs apart. The third man then cut me using a violin. I remember that there were two men that they were waiting inside of the building. Silence and shame shroud the survivors of rape or other forms of sexual violence. Many become infected with HIV and AIDS. They face disease, stigma and social rejection. The United Nations is very much aware of these problems. The United Nations has been dealing with different kinds of victims in different forms of victimization, almost as an inception. The attention had to be paid to the victims, who had in many countries been referred to as the forgotten people, the forgotten part of the criminal justice system. The Congress in Milan adopted the victim declaration, the basic principles of justice for victims of crime and abuse of power. Calling for very concrete action to prevent victimization and also to ensure that there were real services, that there was reparation and that there were rights for victims in the process. The United Nations declaration can be reduced to 10 principles. The first principle, respect and recognition. Sometimes things happen that we have no control over, but the one thing that we do have control over is our action when we go in to interact, in to face with a person that has had a bad turn in life. The cops really made me feel guilty. They didn't do anything, it's their job to make you feel safe and they didn't do anything to make me safe and they didn't do anything to make me feel like they were going to help me. Less than half of those who report crimes are satisfied with their treatment by the police. Second principle, the right to receive information throughout the process. Mrs. Ortega, there are people, women, who are trained to help you. With your permission, I'd like to contact one of them to talk with you. The police really didn't give me the options, they didn't give me the options that they should have and that's kind of sad. Third principle, allow the views of the victim to be presented. Over the years, collective action has produced tangible and dramatic statutory protections. These include allowing the victims to be present, heard and informed throughout the criminal justice process. It's necessary to do more than the job and this is to listen to the victim, let him tell the story, let the defendant understand what happened. Fourth principle, provide assistance throughout the legal process. Our victim witness specialist was wonderful. There wasn't anything in the world that she wouldn't have done for us. It helped us because it prepared us for some of our feelings that we were going to experience. It prepared us for the trial, things that we could expect if we had to go through a lineup, if we had to testify and it just really helped knowing that there was someone there in our corner. Victims of crime in Australia are able to give a victim impact statement but by and large this is a written statement. It's not something that they can deliver orally to show the true impact of the crime. Another negative for victims is that they often don't get much assistance in how to write these victim impact statements. Fifth principle, protect the privacy and physical safety of the victims at all times. You tell me, your husband has assaulted you. This is against the law in Canada. The police will protect you and your children and make sure nothing like this happens to you again. This is not your fault. Yeah, it's private and what is nice about it is that we forget that rape survivors are in treatment rooms for a very long time and often they will be forced to sit on an examination table for two, three hours or more. Sixth principle, allow for informal dispute resolution and alternative restorative justice mechanism. People who rather, you know, apply informal means of resolving some of their issues rather than reporting crimes. That is why in Nigeria although we suspect that there is a high incidence of criminal activities but there is very low reporting. The restorative justice has found by and large that victims A are satisfied with the process. That is that they think the process is fair and that they think they were fairly treated throughout this process. But also it has found that anxiety levels for victims have decreased. Fear of subsequent crimes has decreased. They feel better about themselves in the sense that they don't have a sense of culpability in the crime. So they recognize that it wasn't their fault that they became a crime victim. And part of that restoration is I think they also have a good appreciation for where the offender was coming from. So they see the offender as a real person. Seventh principle, the right to social assistance. Many states are starting to provide limited assistance either through their social systems or from special victim funds. We have a free counselling service. We get funding from the Queensland Government. So that way you don't have to pay for any counselling or support that you get from us. So my work was really to empower women regardless of what they wanted to do. They wanted to stay with their partner, leave their partner, what. But safety was always the key issue. Eighth principle, the right to restitution. In many countries civil suits against the offender are most common the remedies for making the victim whole again can be simple and direct. Like in my country where conversation in the cattle takes place by sitting and discussing the matter to arrive at conversation. There is therefore restorative justice. Ninth principle, the right to compensation from the state. There is usually a limit on the amount of money that victims of crime can apply for. Tenth principle, there should be cooperation between the criminal justice and social welfare agencies of victims employer and NGOs. We need a cooperation of all different sectors of society not only criminal justice but private sector or business sector and others. And all these cooperate together in order to produce the real or effective result. The people that I have met who are victims of trafficking are survivors. They're resourceful. They're very productive. But key to giving them legal rights and implementing that in member states is acknowledgement of their circumstance and what they've gone through giving them recognition and that will help them not to closure because it never closes for them but it's key to their rehabilitation into society. And we need to embrace them, we need to support them and we need to make their rights concrete within the member states. What we need, I would say, is dedication and determination on the part of governments. We need conviction, we need compassion. We need the commitment of resources. We need technology. And that's also the central mission of the International Victimology Institute in Tobago University in Netherlands.