One in five women and one in seven men childhood victims worldwide
About one in five women and one in seven men worldwide experienced sexual violence before age 18, which are widespread assaults with devastating effects on health and adult life, according to a study published Thursday in The Lancet.
Conducted by researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle and funded by the Bill Gates Foundation, this research estimated the number of people who experienced sexual violence during childhood or adolescence in 204 countries, utilizing data from studies conducted by the WHO and the United Nations - in a far fewer number of countries - from 1990 to 2023. It emerges that 18.9% of women and 14.8% of men were victims of sexual violence before age 18 on a global scale, but these estimates, although largely stable since 1990, vary very significantly from region to region and country to country.
In the United States, the proportion of women who have experienced such violence is 27.5%, compared to 16.1% of men, in the United Kingdom, 24.4% of women and 16.5% of men. In India, it rises to 30.8% of women, nearly a third, but is slightly lower for men, at 13.5%. In France, the study estimates that about one in four women (26% against 20.7% on average in Western Europe) have been victims and 13.8% of men. These violences affect 6.9% of women in Montenegro but 42.6% in the Solomon Islands, 4.2% of men in Mongolia but 28.3% of them in Ivory Coast.
The actual extent of sexual violence against children is probably underestimated given the scarcity of available data and the difficulties in measuring these assaults - recorded according to heterogeneous criteria -, note the authors of the study, calling for precise data collection to "target prevention efforts." However, this is a crucial challenge for public health and human rights, as these violences have "serious long-term consequences for the individuals concerned," they emphasize. These victims have "increased risks of major depressive disorders, anxiety, substance use, long-term health problems" and will have "limited self-fulfillment, with reduced levels of education and economic success."
While the first-ever World Ministerial Conference on the elimination of violence against children took place in November 2024 in Bogota, Colombia, the researchers believe that "protecting children from violence and mitigating its cumulative health effects throughout life is a moral imperative."
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