violence against children WORLD REPORT ON - CRIN

“I hate being a child, I hate being hit and I hate being taken for granted. I have feelings and emotions.I need love, care, protection and attention.”Girl, 13, South Asia, 2005 III12An end to violence against children• An estimated 150 million girls and 73million boys under 18 have experiencedforced sexual intercourse or other formsof sexual violence involving physicalcontact. 17• UNICEF estimates that in sub-Saharan Africa, Egypt and Sudan,3 million girls and women aresubjected to FGM every year. 18• ILO estimates that 218 millionchildren were involved in childlabour in 2004, of whom 126 millionwere engaged in hazardous work. 19Estimates from 2000 suggest that5.7 million were in forced or bondedlabour, 1.8 million in prostitution andpornography, and 1.2 million werevictims of trafficking. 20• Only 2.4% of the world’s childrenare legally protected from corporalpunishment in all settings. 21Risk factors and protectivefactorsThe 2002 World Report on Violence and Healthadopted an ‘ecological model’ to help understandthe multi-level, multi-faceted nature ofviolence. As an analytical tool, the model recognisesthat a wide and complex range of factorsincreases the risk of violence and helps to perpetuateit – or, alternatively may protect againstit. As illustrated in Figure 1.2, the ecologicalmodel identifies personal history and characteristicsof the victim or perpetrator, his orher family, the immediate social context (oftenreferred to as community factors) and the characteristicsof the larger society. In contrast tosimplistic explanations, the model emphasisesthat it is a combination of factors, acting at differentlevels, which influence the likelihoodthat violence will occur, recur, or cease. Thevarious factors relevant to the different levelsof the ecological model will also be affected bythe context of the settings that children interactwith – in their home and family environment,at school, in institutions and workplaces, as wellas in their community and broader society.For example, economic development, socialstatus, age and gender are among the many riskfactors associated with fatal violence. WHOestimates that the rate of homicide of childrenin 2002 was twice as high in low-income countriesthan high-income countries (2.58 versus1.21 per 100,000 population). As can be seenin Figure 1.3, the highest child homicide ratesoccur among adolescents, especially boys,aged 15 to 17 years (3.28 per 100,00 for girls,9.06 for boys) and among children aged 0 to 4years (1.99 for girls, 2.09 for boys). 22 However,studies on infant homicide are urgently neededto strengthen the reliability of these estimatesand to determine the extent of practices suchas female infanticide in various regions.Available data suggest that young children areat greatest risk of physical violence, while sexualviolence predominantly affects those who havereached puberty or adolescence. Boys appearto be at greater risk of physical violence thangirls, while girls face greater risk of neglect andsexual violence. 23 Social and cultural patternsof behaviour, socio-economic factors includinginequality and unemployment, and stereotypedgender-roles also play an important role.