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Violence against children is preventable. Effective prevention can stop abuse before it happens, while properly funded healing and justice services support victims and survivors. But too often authorities announce plans without committing to timelines or dedicating the funding needed to achieve them.
Policies without budgets are promises without plans. Brave Movement advocates in dozens of countries around the world are pushing their leaders to change that.
If a country is serious about protecting children from sexual abuse, it must dedicate funding in its national and local budgets for programs that prevent and respond to sexual violence against children and adolescents.
What do we need to fund to keep children and adolescents safe from sexual violence?
- Prevention - stopping abuse before it happens: Both school-based and parent and caregiver programs have been proven to prevent sexual violence, and background checks should be (but in most countries are not) required for all adults that work directly with children.
- Healing - supporting survivors and dealing with trauma: Appropriate training allows medical providers to recognize warning signs and respond, but support services for victims and survivors must go beyond physical health. Trauma-informed mental health care, legal aid, and financial compensation for victims and survivors are all part of a comprehensive healing response.
- Justice - strong laws that hold perpetrators accountable: Justice for survivors begins with ways to report harm. Every child at risk needs to know where to access help in a language they understand. Law enforcement must ensure specialized procedures for child victims in the criminal justice system, as well as ensure that law enforcement professionals are trained to support children and adolescent victims and survivors.
A serious budget treats all three as essential, not as a menu to choose from — with a budget line within a country's ministries or agencies of health, education, and finance that recurs every year, not a one-off allocation.
Consistent and predictable financing that reaches everyone, everywhere
Violence prevention systems often operate without predictable domestic financing, leaving frontline services vulnerable to political shifts, donor transitions, and economic instability.
Unreliable funding undermines prevention, delays survivor support, and weakens justice systems. It results in chronic understaffing and workforce burnout, which reduces the quality of care and makes it more difficult to access help.
That is why recurring, dedicated budget lines are so vital to ensuring children stay safe, year after year.
Keeping children safe, online and off
Every day, members of the Brave Movement tell us just how pervasive online harm has become for children around the world, and how profoundly devastating the consequences are. In our increasingly digital society, protecting children from sexual violence means funding programs to end online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
Survivor activists are calling on governments to allocate funding for enacting and enforcing comprehensive online child safety legislation. This includes the criminalization of online grooming, CSAM offenses, and mandatory internet service provider reporting, supported by trained cyber investigators. Learn more about our work to prevent tech-facilitated violence.
Violence is preventable. Change is possible.
In the past year, 82 million girls and 69 million boys have experienced some form of sexual violence, approximately 3 girls and 2 boys per second. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
We know that childhood sexual violence is preventable with national budgets that actually commit to it, recurring year over year, across prevention, healing, and justice alike.
FAQs on how financing can end childhood sexual violence
Is childhood sexual violence actually preventable?
It's preventable. Child abuse prevention programs — school-based education, caregiver training, community awareness — can prevent abuse before it occurs. Treating sexual violence against children as inevitable is precisely what allows underfunded, reactive plans to persist instead of proactive ones.
Aren’t countries already invested in ending childhood sexual violence?
Child protection systems are poorly funded in both high and lower income countries around the world, despite high rates of violence against children and increasing need for survivor-centered services. Child protection systems often operate on unstable and short-term financing cycles. This results in gaps in funding for frontline services, and leaves survivors of childhood sexual violence without help.
Unreliable funding undermines prevention, delays survivor support, and weakens justice systems. It results in chronic understaffing and workforce burnout, which reduces the quality of care and makes it more difficult to access help. Violence prevention must be recognized as a core public investment by all governments, and not treated as optional.
Are there areas where funding is particularly weak or inconsistent?
Rural areas, lower-income countries, and other underserved communities have even more limited access to the things they need: safe ways to report concerns, trauma-informed medical care, legal support and mental health services. In many cases, experts don’t know the full extent of the gaps because the data isn’t available.
That’s why Brave Movement activists are calling for financial accountability to track whether resources are actually reaching children, survivors, and frontline services in both rural and urban areas.
What should a national budget for ending childhood sexual violence include?
At minimum, countries should dedicate funding for prevention (like school-based programs to prevent sexual violence), healing (like medical and integrated support for survivors), and justice (like functioning reporting and legal systems). A budget that only funds one of these three treats a systemic problem with a partial solution.
What should be included in a national budget for preventing childhood sexual violence?
Budgets should include dedicated, reliable funding for age-appropriate education, programs to prevent sexual violence for parents and teachers, and background checks for all adults working directly with children.
Some examples could be a recurring annual budget line within the Ministry of Education that invests in teacher training and school-based programs designed to teach children, from an early age, about healthy relationships, consent, and how to recognize and report abuse.
What does effective child abuse prevention actually look like?
A good example of how child abuse can be prevented is the “End School-Related Gender-Based Violence" program implemented by UNGEI and UNICEF. This program ran across 200 schools in Sierra Leone combining student life-skills training, teacher codes of conduct, and safe reporting spaces. Experiences of sexual violence decreased by 33% and the belief that ‘rape’ should be kept secret fell from 31% to 9%.
What should be included in a national budget for healing?
Budgets should include medical and other support services for victims and survivors, trauma-informed mental health care, legal aid, and financial compensation for victims and survivors.
One example could be an annual budget line within the Ministry of Health that pays for support services for victims and survivors of sexual violence, including trauma-informed healthcare and ongoing mental health support, not just emergency response.
What does healing from child abuse look like?
A good example of integrated healing services is the “Screening for Sexual Violence Against Children” program. Implemented by PopCouncil in Kenya in schools and national hospitals, 75% of children who disclosed having experienced sexual violence obtained care.
What should a national budget include for justice?
Budgets should include functioning reporting mechanisms, special procedures for child victims in the criminal justice system, and trained law enforcement and judicial systems.
Some examples are the establishment of child-friendly reporting and investigation systems — including trained specialist police units, child-appropriate interview processes that avoid re-traumatization, and accessible legal aid that helps conclude cases in no more than eight months, so survivors and their families can pursue a case without being retraumatized by a lengthy court process or bearing its cost themselves.
What does justice for victims of childhood sexual violence look like?
Child-friendly reporting and investigation systems must include trained specialist police units and child-appropriate interview processes that avoid re-traumatization. In Zimbabwe, victim-friendly courts have been established to address the challenges children face in the justice system. The system is designed to guide children through complex legal systems, provide a child-friendly environment, and provide holistic support services. This has led to children being better protected and fairer trial experiences for victims and survivors.
Why does budget transparency matter if a plan is already funded?
If a government does not publish its budget, the public cannot hold it accountable for allocating appropriate resources to child protection, including sexual violence prevention and response. A government can allocate money to child protection without ever publishing where it goes, how much of it is used for program and policy implementation, or whether it's being spent as intended. Transparency is what allows the public to verify that budget commitments to prevention, healing, and justice are actually being kept.
What are the actual benefits of putting money towards prevention, healing and justice?
Child protection is an economic investment — the numbers make the case on their own. Meanwhile, every $1 invested in protecting children returns up to $21 in economic and social benefits. More children growing up safe means reduced healthcare costs, higher education and lifetime earnings, and less homelessness and housing instability.
