Pan-African Symposium on Violence Prevention

Despite progress and improvements in legal and policy frameworks to address violence against children, Africa has some of the highest rates of violence against children:

• Every second a child reaches out to child helpline services to report abuse and violence.
• Over 60 % of children experience physical punishment from family members and caregivers in many countries in Africa.
• 1 in 4 children experience sexual violence.
• Each year 3 million girls are at risk of genital cutting in Africa.
• 15 million girls are married every year, with 40% of girls in sub-Saharan Africa married before their 18th birthday.
• 4 out of  10 boys in residential care institutions suffer physical violence, while 2 in 10 experience sexual violence of one or another form.
• Violent and degrading punishment of children has been documented in care settings and in penal institutions in many countries.
• Child trafficking is increasing: Sub-Saharan Africa reports the highest share of child trafficking in the world, and girls and boys are more or less equally detected.

Collective effort

More efforts are needed to bring actors working around both prevention and response together to ensure all actors are involved in child protection debates and collaborative initiatives in Africa.  However, very few opportunities exist for bringing together all players to learn from each other and speak out through a united, regional voice. This is why creating a collective African front for advancing the implementation of the violence-related targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, AU Agenda 2063, the African Agenda for Children’s Rights 2040 and other global, continental and sub-regional frameworks was necessary.