Advertisement

Louise Mensch: Tackling pervasive violence against children

Commenting on Unicef's newly released violence against children report, Louise Mensch calls for a collective effort to stop the pandemic abuse at home and abroad. We’ve been shocked at the depth and scale of child abuse from grooming gangs here at home in Britain – and scandalized by photos of a seven year old boy smiling as his father makes him hold a severed human head in Iraq, where children are routinely brutalized and terrorized by ISIS. But these headline incidents are, a new Unicef reportreveals today, just the tip of the iceberg. Violence against children is pervasive – and the world has been put on notice. In the West, sexual violence and abuse is rife. Almost a quarter of American adolescent girls reported some kind of sexual harassment, abuse or assault in the last year; fewer boys, but still almost ten percent, had the same thing happen to them. In the developing world, things are far worse. One hundred and twenty-five million girls and women have been sexually tortured and mutilated through FGM, usually in their childhood or early teens. And one in nine of all young girls in developing countries enter into long-term rape and sex abuse situations before they are old enough to consent – a phenomenon still inaccurately described as “child marriage” even in Unicef’s report. Under the age of fifteen, children cannot marry, or give sexual consent – yet this routine “rape for life” situation is an epidemic around the world, a way of life for millions of girls. There is a human and an economic cost to this genocide of innocence. British researchers have shown how the brain of a mistreated child can literally shrink from the extreme stress, up to six percent. This harms their cognitive development and productivity. 4% of global GDP is lost this way at a dollar penalty of two trillion pounds. In 2015, the Millennium Development Goals expire. The UK has done well to stick to our aid commitments and play our part in reaching these goals, despite political opposition at home. And the benefits have been huge. We can all go blind on statistics, but here is how Britain has made a difference in basic life and education – infant mortality has halved in the developing world and in those regions, primary school enrollment has hit an all-time high of 90%. Now we have to move from children’s very life to their safety – particularly from child abuse, particularly for girls. The UK should be proud of its leadership here. We have criminalized forced marriage and pushed for FGM prosecution. The Modern Slavery Bill looks at the massive problem of human trafficking, including child trafficking. Unicef wants the government – and all parties – to commit to build on its work with a goal of ending global assaults on children by 2030. All forms of violence against the world’s little ones – rape, sexual assault, torture, violence, exploitation and human trafficking must come to an end. The Millennium Development goals worked for the life and schooling of children round the world. Now we must follow this by building a world free from violence against the youngest and most vulnerable. It can be done. We must make a start today.