One in Ten Girls Worldwide Forced into a Sexual Act, Says UNICEF

The United Nation's children's agency ( UNICEF) has said in a report that one in 10 girls around the world are forced in to a sexual act. It also said that six in 10 children between the ages of 2 to 14 are beaten regularly by parents and caregivers . The report was published on the UNICEF website on Thursday.

 The report, based on data from 190 countries, reveals that most of the physical and emotional violence inflicted on children is perpetrated at home and during peacetime. This is in contrast to the general belief that children in the streets and during war are more vulnerable to violence, reports The New York Times.

In some Latin American countries, homicide is widespread and thousands of children are escaping to the United States. 

Adolescent boys aged 19 and under are dying in massive numbers due to homicide in El Salvador, Guatemala and Venezuela, the report says.

 Central and Eastern Europe, on the other hand, has the lowest rates of homicide among children.

Though war has only a small share in contributing to the violence against children, the domestic violence against women and children increases noticeably during fights and other humanitarian emergencies.

"Most violence against children occurs at the hands of the people charged with their care or with whom they interact daily - caregivers, peers and intimate partners," the report says, according to The New York Times.

Regarding corporal punishment, the report says that about six in 10 children, which comes to one billion worldwide, are subjected to corporal punishment by their caregivers as well as parents. However, cruel forms of  punishment like hitting a child's head, ears, face or hitting hard and frequently are not commonplace.

One fourth of girls in the age group of 15 to 19 said that they had been victims of some form of physical violence after the age of 15.  The perpetrators were men who were close to them.

More than 70 per cent of girls in India and Zambia have blamed their present or former husbands or partners for indulging in violence against them.

In another revelation, the report said that half of all girls between the ages of 15 to 19 believed that a husband was sometimes right in beating his wife. One in ten girls also said that they experience forced intercourse and other forced sexual acts sometime in their lives.  A small degree of sexual violence was encountered by boys also.

35 percent of girls between the ages of 14 to 17, and 20 per cent of boy's of the same age group, experienced such violence in the United States.