Lack of commitment from governments is leading to persisting and escalating violence against children

• No surveyed country has done enough to end violence by 2030  

• 1 in 2 children are victims of violence  

• The global financial cost of violence against children is estimated at $7 trillion annually  

Each year, one billion children globally are victims of violence, robbing them of their innocence and leaving lifelong scars. Governments have promised to end the violence, but despite progress in some areas, other areas have dramatically regressed or stalled. Legal patchworks are leaving children behind. 

In its latest report, Unfinished Business: The progress in policies to end violence against children, international child-focused aid organisation, World Vision, reveals that not a single country reviewed has fully outlawed, and enforces, a prohibition on all forms of violence against children. In 5 of the 8 criteria we assessed to end violence against children, one or more countries had made 0% progress. As a result, ending violence against children is no closer; one in two children report being victims of violence.   

“The lack of action and progress toward upholding national commitments to ending violence against children is deeply worrying and will have long term consequences for children and their communities,” said Tamara Tutnjevic, World Vision’s Senior Director of Public Policy. “What’s not always obvious is the impact it has on the future. The global financial cost of violence against children is estimated at $7 trillion annually, when looking at the loss of future productivity, so it impacts every global citizen,” added Tutnjevic.

Although there is a growing understanding of what needs to be done to end violence against children, and these programmes do reduce violence against children when they are implemented, the current scale and reach of these interventions is insufficient to affect the global, or even a national, picture.   

Child labour is currently a reality for 160 million children, with the numbers only increasing as a result of climate change, and 12 million girls are married during their childhood. At the current rate, it will take 300 years to eliminate child marriage. The research found that out of the 21 countries surveyed, it was mostly countries in West Africa who were at the bottom of the table for each of the eight criteria examined. The same region has the highest rates of child marriage, and second highest rates of child labour in the world.