UNICEF Calls for Urgent Action to Fight Violence against Children

UNICEF recently announced an initiative that urges ordinary citizens, lawmakers and governments to speak out more forcefully to fight violence against children.

 

The “End Violence against Children” initiative urges people around the world to recognise violence against children, join global, national or local movements to end it and bring together new ideas to focus collective actions on this goal. 

 

The need to take urgent collective action is underlined even by the limited statistics available, which point to the scale and extent of violence. For example, some 150 million girls and 73 million boys under 18 years experienced sexual violence and exploitation, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), and an estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked every year, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

 

In Vietnam, the Children and Women Goals Assessment Survey 2011 showed that 74 per cent of children aged 2-14 experienced an act of violence, meaning that those children suffered at least one act of physical or spiritual violence caused by parents, caregivers or family members. According to the Ministry of Public Security, about 1,800 children were reported to have been abused in 2009 and 60 per cent of them were sexually abused. More than 600 children were abducted and trafficked in the same year.