Measuring Violence against Children – Inventory and assessment of quantitative studies

This publication is a review of currently existing quantitative studies on violence against children. This study and the Child Protection Monitoring and Evaluation Reference Group (CP MERG), were created to develop a set of guidelines for the collection of data on violence against children.

Current research and data on violence against children are infrequent and inconsistent, especially in low- and middle-income countries. CP MERG’s goal is to assist countries and partners in gathering consistent, reliable, and useful data for outputs, which can impact policy making and further research. This goal will be realized through the creation of guidelines for data collection and analysis.

This review looks mainly at studies conducted in low- and middle-income countries as well as three studies from Western Europe. The review finds similarities and dissimilarities, trends and exceptions, which reveal fragmented research, varying quality of research, and ad hoc definitions.