#FreeFromViolence
ChildFund Alliance launched a multi-year global effort beginning in 2012 to ensure that the protection of children from violence and exploitation would become a priority in the 2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. During the campaign, more than 680,000 people signed a ChildFund petition so that a world where children are #FreeFromViolence would become a global priority. Now that protecting children from violence and exploitation is a key part of the world’s Sustainable Development Goals, ChildFund is working to ensure these global aspirations are translated into concrete and definitive actions to end violence against children.
See our interactive data visualization to learn what 16,000 children from 50 countries had to say about violence against children and the related global priorities.
About Free From Violence
ChildFund Alliance launched a global campaign in 2012 for a world where all children would be free from violence and exploitation. We urged stakeholders to prioritize the protection of children from violence and exploitation in the new United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We also consulted with more than 16,000 children from 50 countries, through four reports released in 2013 and 2014, to gather children’s opinions about violence against children and the related global priorities. These reports provided children with a platform to deliver a resounding statement on the importance of eradicating violence against them in the two years leading up to the passing of the 2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. See our interactive data visualization to learn what 16,000 children from 50 countries had to say about violence against children and the related global priorities. View the results.
UN Adoption of SDGs
In September 2015, the United Nations unanimously adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 universal goals and targets that frame the global agenda for the next 15 years. Due in large part to ChildFund Alliance’s strong advocacy, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the UN Member States includes a stand-alone target on violence against children, SDG Target 16.2: End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children.
ChildFund Alliance played a key role in positioning for this stand-alone target, and in September 2016 announced Child-friendly Accountability, an initiative that is working with and empowering children to hold governments and local leaders accountable to their obligations to end all violence against children. Learn more about Child-friendly Accountability here.
Facts & Stats
- Violence against children costs the world up to US $7 trillion. (Source: ODI/ChildFund Alliance 2014)
- More than one billion children are exposed to violence each year (Source: CDC 2018)
- Every five minutes, a child dies as a result of violence. (Source: UNICEF UK 2014)
- 152 million children worldwide are victims of child labor (Source: ILO 2017)
- Corporal punishment in schools is still allowed in 67 countries (Source: Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children 2020)
- 12 million girls under the age of 18 are married every year (Source: Girls Not Brides 2020)
- Close to one quarter of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 have experienced physical violence. (Source: UNICEF 2020)
- 1 in 2 children aged 2-17 years suffered violence in the past year (Source: WHO 2020)
- 12% of children were physically abused in the past year (Source: WHO 2020)