One in 10 girls sexually abused, says U.N. report

About 120 million girls worldwide - slightly more than one in 10 - have been forced to have sex by the age of 20. Further, one fifth of all homicide victims globally are under 20 years old, resulting in 95,000 deaths in 2012, according to a United Nations report released Thursday. Drawing on data from 190 countries, the report from the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, notes that children around the world are routinely exposed to physical, sexual and emotional violence ranging from murder and forced sexual acts to bullying and abusive discipline. UNICEF also says 95,000 children and teenagers - most of them in Latin America and the Caribbean - were murdered in 2012 alone.

[The violence] cuts across boundaries of age, geography, religion, ethnicity and income brackets. It occurs in places where children should be safe, their homes, schools and communities. Increasingly, it happens over the Internet.

Anthony Lake , UNICEF Executive Director

According to the report, about one in 10 girls around the world under 20 years old have been forced into sex acts, and one in three married adolescent girls, about 84 million, have been victims of emotional, physical or sexual violence committed by their husbands or partners. UNICEF said the prevalence of partner violence is 70 per cent or higher in Congo and Equatorial Guinea and approaches or exceeds 50 per cent in Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. In Switzerland, it said a 2009 study found 22 per cent of girls and 8 per cent of boys aged 15 to 17 had experienced at least one incident of sexual violence, most commonly stemming from interactions on the Internet. Violence against children in some countries is socially accepted, tacitly condoned or not seen as being abusive, UNICEF said. Victims are too young or too vulnerable to report the crimes, the legal system can’t adequately respond, and child protection services are also scarce.

World girls abused