The voices of the children’s choir echoed in the conference hall as a reminder that more than one billion children who experience some form of violence each year.

Their performance was part of the historic first high-level ministerial conference to end violence against children in Bogota late last week, which brought together government delegations, children, survivors, and other key stakeholders. 

“We need a pledge for a future of opportunities for each child, so this is a moment to join our voices and resources to protect our children and ensure a peaceful and just future,” urged Luis Gilberto Murillo Urrutia, Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs in a welcome address to delegates to the largest governmental gathering to address the issue. 

Governments representing more than 100 nations agreed to a new global declaration to protect children from all kinds of violence, exploitation, and abuse.

Nine countries pledged to ban corporal punishment in schools: Burundi, Czechia, Gambia, Kyrgyzstan, Panama, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Tajikistan, and Nigeria. Dozens more pledged to investment in parenting support and national policies. 

Over half of all children globally experience some form of violence including corporal punishment in schools and at home, bullying, physical abuse, and sexual violence. These numbers, which include the one in eight girls and women who have experienced rape or sexual assault before the age of 18, according to new United Nations Agency for Children (UNICEF) estimates released last month. 

“Violence does more than harm individual children; it undermines the fabric of our society. It makes it harder for children to build happy, healthy lives and costs the global economy billions of dollars each year,” the WHO said in a statement. Despite this, the Conference represented the first global meeting to address the issue. 

The scale of children subjected to violence, and its lifelong implications created a sense of urgency at the conference, hosted by the Colombian and Swedish governments, in partnership with WHO, UNICEF and the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on ending violence against children..

“The results are serious harm to their physical and mental health and well-being setbacks to their education and future employment, unhealthy behaviors and perpetuating a cycle of violence from generation to generation, addressing this horrific reality requires concerted action from all of our removals at heavy level capitalist, schools, communities, and homes,” remarked Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, in a video address at the conference opening.  

The WHO notes that this violence is often “hidden” and under-reported, with less than 10% of children receiving help. 

Yet this violence is preventable, as multiple speakers affirmed. The WHO’s INSPIRE package, a seven-point strategy to address violence against children, provides member states with “evidence-based strategies to stop the cycle of violence in a wide range of settings, in homes, through parenting interventions, in schools, through life skill training in social protection skills and through cash transfers in communities,” highlighted Tedros. 

The WHO notes that when countries implement such strategies, they can reduce violence against children by as much as 20-50%.

Evidence-based solutions ‘need to be scaled up’

Solutions include parenting support to help avoid violent discipline, school-based anti-bullying interventions and enabling safe school environments, and laws that reduce underlying risk factors like access to firearms and alcohol.

These have the potential to dramatically reduce the number of children who experience violence, said Alex Butchart, WHO unit head for Violence Prevention.

“There should be the implementation and enforcement of laws, for instance, that ban corporal punishment by parents in the home or by teachers in the schools,” Butchart told a media briefing.

“There should be efforts to denormalize the use of violence. It’s not okay to hit a child any more than it’s okay to hit an adult. There should be efforts to support families that are in danger of slipping under the economic safety level through cash transfers and home income strengthening, and there can be more work on ensuring that within school settings, education and life skills training for younger children and adolescents to help them negotiate tricky areas in life without resorting to aggression,” Butchart argued.

Country-level implementation will be a challenge, and advocates in the space hope the record attendance of government participants will spur meaningful change. 

The conference featured a “Break the Record” campaign to call attention to the “inaction in tackling violence against children,” said Together for Girls, a global partnership founded by sexual abuse survivors working to end violence against children.

Pledges to adopt child-friendly policies

All countries attending pledged to implement at least one of the 12 key policy areas proposed by conference organisers, ranging from parent and caregiver support to human, financial and infrastructure resources. Many also committed to  legislation that would create healthier environments for children.

Tanzania committed to investing nearly $70,000 in “Child Protection Desks” in all primary and secondary schools, to investigate cases of violence against children in schools, for example. 

The Solomon Islands pledged to raise the minimum age of marriage from 15 to 18 years by December 2025. Jordan will provide rehabilitation programs for “perpetrators of domestic violence against women and children as part of national response and preventive services.” And Brazilian government’s pledges included an acknowledgement that those living in peripheral territories have a greater burden of homicides and drug-related violence. 

Burundi, Czechia, Kyrgyzstan, Panama, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and Tajikistan have pledged to prohibit corporal punishment; while the Gambia and Nigeria have promised to end it in schools.

Several countries, including Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, have no prohibitions against corporal punishment, and many more have only partial prohibitions, like the US. 

“The ban against corporal punishment in 1979 was one of the most significant measures in Sweden for combating violence against children,” remarked Swedish Minister for Social Services, Camilla Waltersson Grönvall.

Addressing online harassment

Experts at UNICEF and WHO also pointed to the threat of online bullying and sexual exploitation. WHO estimates 15% of children have been bullied online.

“Online violence is real. It is, however, often not occurring in an online vacuum, but it is part of a continuum of violence between the interpersonal and the online world, and probably most often, the people that are perpetrating online violence are peers, friends, acquaintances known to the victim,” said Butchart. 

Nineteen countries made pledges to address online harms. South Africa’s national commitment states its pledge to “build the capacity of different stakeholders on online safety including parents, caregivers, children, frontline workers and strengthen the curriculum in schools promoting the online safety of children by 2027.”

Image Credits: WHO.