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This purpose of this indicator is to capture all experiences of sexual violence that occurred during childhood.

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.

Ministry of National Security

Belize Police Department

Ministry of National Security

Belize Police Department

Annual

Percentage (%)

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.

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.

is by sex, age, income, place of residence, geographic location, marital status, education.

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.

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.

The availability of comparable data remains a serious challenge in this area as many data collection efforts have relied on different study methodologies and designs, definitions of sexual violence, samples and questions to elicit information. Data on the experiences of boys are particularly sparse. A further challenge in this field is underreporting, especially when it comes to reporting on experiences of sexual violence among boys and men.

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/.