Survivors and allies take collective action to break the silence around childhood sexual violence

Survivors, partners and allies around the world are demanding action to break the silence surrounding childhood sexual violence on this Global Day of Action on 9 June. Survivors and supporters across the globe, including in Bolivia, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, France, India, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, and the United States, are using their voices to demand urgent action by G7 leaders to end childhood sexual violence. From rallies outside international embassies, to candlelight vigils, to harnessing the power of social media, we can and we will inspire transformative action to end childhood sexual violence.

And you can play your part!

Our leaders cannot ignore us. Please sign and share our G7 petition to end childhood sexual violence. It’s in English, Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Japanese and Italian. More than 67,000 people have already signed the petition so add your signature and share widely with your networks.

Add your voice to the online discussion and show support using the graphics and posts in our social media toolkit.

And find out more about what we are demanding from our leaders, below.

Today is just one day of action, but it doesn’t end here! We are committed to breaking the silence, speaking out and being brave – so children can be safe – every day. We raise our voices so that our leaders must sit up and take action now.

Join us at the Brave Movement today!

We are calling for G7 leaders to take action on Prevention, Healing and Justice to End Childhood Sexual Violence:

1. PRIORITIZE ENDING CHILDHOOD SEXUAL VIOLENCE

• G7 leaders should include this issue on their agenda when they meet in June and make concrete and timebound commitments in the leaders communiqué.
• G7 Interior and Security Ministers should meet in 2022 to drive forward their ‘Action Plan to Combat Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse’. This work should be informed by the G7 working group that was announced in 2021.

2. DELIVER ON EXISTING G7 COMMITMENTS

• New commitments of $1 billion to the End Violence Fund housed at the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children to scale prevention, healing, and justice programmes in low and middle income countries.
• Commit to legislate on child-rights driven end-to-end encryption and end its use in childhood sexual violence.
• Publish the agreed G7 plan for coordinated engagement with industry ahead of the June G7 summit.

3. ENGAGE WITH SURVIVORS

• The G7 should establish a G7 Survivors Council as an advisory board which should help inform G7 policies and make sure that survivors’ knowledge is included in policy and practice.

4. DEVELOP AND IMPLEMENT NATIONAL ACTION PLANS AND STRATEGIES

These should be embedded in existing National Action Plans to End Violence Against Children, and build on the WePROTECT Model National Response, and should include:

• A whole government approach that is fully funded and focused on prevention, healing, and justice
• Training of all relevant state employees into how to interact with and support child and adult survivors of childhood sexual violence
• Adequate support services for all survivors and national campaigns to de-stigmatise the use of such services
• The abolition of Statutes of Limitation in cases of childhood sexual violence where that is not already the case
• Community-based, child-friendly approaches for responding to child violence and witnesses of child violence
• Research and support programmes to overcome the psychological motivation of perpetrators of childhood sexual violence.