- Name
- Percentage of young women and men aged 18-24 who have experienced sexual violence by age 18
- Indicator purpose
- This purpose of this indicator is to capture all experiences of sexual violence that occurred during childhood.
- Abstract
- Sexual violence is one of the most unsettling of children's rights violations. Experiences of sexual violence in childhood hinder all aspects of development: physical, psychological/emotional and social. Apart from the physical injuries that can result, researchers have consistently found that the sexual abuse of children is associated with a wide array of mental health consequences and adverse behavioural outcomes in adulthood.
- Contact organization / person
- Ministry of National Security
Belize Police Department
- Unit of measure
- Percentage (%)
- Other characteristics
- The issue is universally relevant, and the indicator captures one of the gravest forms of violence against children. The right of children to protection from all forms of violence is enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and its Optional Protocols.
- Classification used
- Sexual violence comprises any sexual activities imposed by an adult on a child against which the child is entitled to protection by criminal law. This includes: (a) The inducement or coercion of a child to engage in any unlawful or psychologically harmful sexual activity; (b) The use of children in commercial sexual exploitation; (c) The use of children in audio or visual images of child sexual abuse; and (d) Child prostitution, sexual slavery, sexual exploitation in travel and tourism, trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation (within and between countries), sale of children for sexual purposes and forced marriage. Sexual activities are also considered as abuse when committed against a child by another child if the offender is significantly older than the victim or uses power, threat or other means of pressure. Consensual sexual activities between children are not considered as sexual abuse if the children are older than the age limit defined by the State Party.
- Disaggregation
- is by sex, age, income, place of residence, geographic location, marital status, education.
- Key statistical concepts
- Number of young women and men aged 18-29 years who report having experienced any sexual violence by age 18 divided by the total number of young women and men aged 18-29 years, respectively, in the population multiplied by 100.
- Recommended uses
- The indicator is used to help the Ministry of Human Development and Ministry of National Security to protect the health, safety, and well-being of children.
- Other comments
- UNICEF maintains the global database on sexual violence in childhood that is used for SDG and other official reporting. Before the inclusion of any data point in the database, it is reviewed by technical focal points at UNICEF headquarters to check for consistency and overall data quality. All the metadata shown in this document was gathered from United Nation Statistics Division. The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/.
- Target 2020
- 2. End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children
