Reacción a "Nearly one in five women and one in seven men have experienced sexual violence before the age of 18 worldwide"

A new article, just released by the Lancet Commission is one of the first studies on Sexual Violence against Children (SVAC), with data from 204 countries by age and sex. The study has documented confronting figures - 18.9% of adolescent young women and 14.8 % of adolescent young men under 18 years globally experienced sexual violence. The article reports that 7.7% of the 16,786 females globally had experienced sexual violence before the age of 12 years with this increasing to 67.3% before the age of 18 years.  

The highest average rates for sexual violence against young women were recorded in South Asia and for young men in Africa. There were also stark and notable regional, country and geographic differences with estimates for India being 30.8% of young women and 13.5% of young men and 27.5% of young women and 16.1% of young men for the USA.

SVAC is a critical human rights, public health, social, and community issue with significant long-term impacts. Survivors face a lifetime of health conditions with major psychosocial and mental health impacts, including depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and STIs and chronic conditions. The authors state that SVAC is often under-reported, so actual figures may be much higher and there is a dire need for resources and funding to develop health system support for surveillance in all countries for accurate estimation of SVAC so that targeted interventions and services are provided to survivors throughout their life and globally generations of children can be protected.