Child Abuse

In the United States alone, 683,000 children were neglected or abused in 2015, of which 75 percent were neglected and 25 percent were physically abused. Approximately, 1,670 children died as a result of abuse or neglect.¹ According to UNICEF, 6 in every 10 children worldwide is subjected to physical punishment by their caregiver on a regular basis, totalling almost one billion children from ages 2 to 14.² Twenty five percent of adults report they were physically abused as children, and an estimated 41,000 children under the age of 15 die as victims of a homicide each year. Approximately 90 percent of these child homicide victims are from middle or low income nations.³ In countries such as India, Mozambique, Nepal, Pakistan, Zambia and Tanzania where child marriage is common, 70 percent of the young women who have been physically abused stated that their partner was the one carrying out the violence.⁴ One third of girls ages 15 to 19 report physical, emotional or sexual abuse at the hand of a husband or intimate partner.⁵ Adolescent boys also experiences these forms of abuse, but are two times less likely than young women to have been subjected to intimate partner violence. Nearly half of young women worldwide — almost 126 million — believe it is acceptable for a husband to strike his wife.⁶ Female genital mutilation is a particular threat to young girls around the world, and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that over 125 million women and girls have undergone FGM.⁷ Young women who undergo FGM face extreme pain, shock, hemorrhaging, tetanus or sepsis immediately following the operation, and face long-term consequences such as urinary tract infections, infertility, pain during intercourse, an increased risk of childbirth complications and death, and often require later surgeries.⁸