EBN- More than 370 million girls and women around the world have been raped or sexually assaulted during their childhood or adolescence, according to a global report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) that addresses this type of violence, which has reached “alarming proportions.”
The organization stated, in a statement summarizing the content of the report it submitted today, that “more than 370 million girls and women alive today, or one in every eight, were subjected to rape or sexual assault before the age of 18.”
The statement noted that “the number of girls and women affected rises to 650 million worldwide, or one in five, if non-contact forms of sexual violence, such as verbal assaults via the Internet, are included.”
The organization’s executive director, Catherine Russell, described “sexual violence against children” as “an assault that our collective conscience cannot tolerate.”
The statement quoted Russell as saying that these assaults and rapes “cause deep and lasting trauma,” noting that “they are often committed by a trusted person, in environments where the child should feel safe.”
The announcement of these “first-ever global and regional estimates on sexual violence against children” comes on the eve of October 11, the United Nations-recognized “International Day of the Girl.”
UNICEF considered that “the scale of this violence on a global scale (…) is worrying,” especially that which affects adolescent girls.
Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest number of victims (79 million girls and young women, or 22 per cent of women), and thus one in five women in this region was a victim of sexual assault or rape before the age of 18.
East and Southeast Asia came in second (75 million, or 8 percent of women).
