About 120 million girls across the globe have been subjected to sexual violence, a startling report by Unicef has found.
The children’s agency also says 95,000 children and teenagers were murdered in 2012 alone – most of these incidences occurring in Latin America and the Caribbean.
As well as this, six out of every 10 children aged between two and 14 are exposed to regular physical punishment by their carers.
The report, which draws on data from 190 countries, found children around the globe are routinely exposed to various forms of violence including bullying.
But Unicef executive director, Anthony Lake, said 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,” Lake added.
“Increasingly, it happens over the internet, and it’s perpetrated by family members and teachers, neighbours and strangers and other children.”
Unicef noted that while there has been growing recognition in recent years about the impact of such incidences, violence against children remains largely underreported and undocumented.
In fact, in some countries, violence against children remains socially acceptable and culturally entrenched, with victims often too afraid to report the abuse.
The grim global audit is one of the largest of it’s kind and looked at a variety of statistics from many different countries.
