Successful child sexual violence prevention efforts start with data: how the Violence Against Children and Youth Survey helped curb the tide of child sexual violence in 20 countries

Correspondence to Laura Chiang; lchiang@cdc.gov Introduction Violence against children is a pervasive global public health and human rights issue, with 1 billion children experiencing at least one form of violence annually.1 Extensive scientific literature shows childhood adversity, including sexual violence, to be directly and indirectly associated with a host of health and social consequences with a dose–response effect, consequential intergenerational impacts, and sizeable economic ramifications.2 There is a dearth of population data on the prevalence of childhood sexual violence as well as its antecedents and health and social outcomes, which has hampered violence prevention and child protection efforts globally and locally. After data collection and analysis, findings are disseminated to multi-sectoral partners within countries, including relevant government ministries, civil society and multi-lateral institutions. [...]the VACS are adapted by key partners in each country and there is some variation in wording of questions between countries. [...]VACS are household surveys and do not collect data on children who are institutionalised or otherwise living outside family care.