A Vision to Zero: ending child sexual violence

Imagine children playing in perfect safety. Imagine over 220 million girls worldwide attending school and university, with child marriage a thing of the past. Imagine kids exploring online from Brisbane to Bamako to Buenos Aires, without any risk of being targeted by predators. Imagine a world where childhood sexual violence is not tolerated anywhere. While this vision might seem like an impossibility, we believe that it is possible and that we are closer to making it a reality than ever before.

For children in every country, there is a threat of sexual violence, with one in five girls and one in seven boys facing child sexual abuse before they turn 18.² Child sexual violence is uniquely insidious because it is both intimate and institutional. It is both culturally specific and worldwide.

Oak has been investing in stopping child sexual abuse for nearly two decades, and our partners have been making great headway in tackling the issue of child sexual violence. However, the field remains fragmented, with many partners working in isolation and disconnected from other actors working across the ecosystem to drive change.

“As a funder, we were hearing from our partners that there was a great appetite to ‘think big’. There was impatience with the status quo, and impatience with incremental change. So we knew we had to think differently,” says Brigette De Lay, director of Oak’s Prevent Child Sexual Abuse Programme.

This is the backdrop behind To Zero, an initiative launched in 2023 to speed up progress in ending childhood sexual violence, by working with sector leaders, practitioners, and survivors to envision a better future. To Zero is “bringing together these sector leaders, to work collectively, to imagine what that end to childhood sexual violence would look like, and what it would take to get there,” says Sean Coughlan, To Zero’s director. The leaders who have contributed to the vision of To Zero represent the best minds in the field worldwide. They include a diverse group of professionals working to drive change in different ways and contexts. Together, they have forged a new and field-level vision of what needs to be done to eradicate child sexual violence faster.

Over the past 18 months, To Zero has worked with the community to create a call to action called ‘A Vision to Zero’, which outlines areas to focus on over the long term to eradicate child sexual violence. “This includes eight ‘action accelerators’, which are proven things that can be done right now,” says Sean. These are:

• transforming narratives around child sexual violence, so that difficult conversations about what is important and what must change can take place;
• galvanising political activism, centring survivors, parents/caregivers, and young people;
• incentivising institutions to protect children and end impunity for perpetrators;
• supporting justice reforms in order to shape survivor-centred justice systems and hold powerful institutions to account;
• incentivising the tech industry to create safer digital spaces for children;
• enhancing strategies to end peer-on-peer abuse, which means reducing young people’s exposure to harmful online content;
• strengthening the evidence base on child sexual violence, which will allow us to better evaluate and respond to it; and
• reshaping the funding landscape for action to stop childhood sexual violence.

Oak partners are among the ‘action accelerators’ celebrated in the report, for example, the Oficina de Defensoría de los Derechos de la Infancia (ODI), an organisation promoting children’s rights in Mexico, has litigated cases in which young children have suffered sexual, physical, and psychological violence in schools. In 2021, it won a landmark case on behalf of the children. This resulted in harsh sentences for perpetrators – and crucial court mandates to help keep children safe. The Ministry of Education is now required to incorporate education on sexual violence into its classrooms. Mexico City must guarantee ‘transparent schools’ without hidden spaces where abuse can occur. And, the Attorney General’s Office has had to expand its investigations into criminal activity.

Soma Sara, who founded Everyone’s Invited in the UK, provides a website where survivors of abuse and rape can share their stories anonymously to alleviate their distress, isolation, and shame. Today, it’s a community of over 54,000 survivors and young people breaking the culture of silence around child sexual violence. Everyone’s Invited now provides educational programmes for young people to equip them with the skills they need to engage in equal, loving, and empowering relationships. More than 100 schools have taken part in workshops, benefiting 40,000 students.

On the digital safety front, the Brave Movement and the Heat Initiative have successfully encouraged Apple to create a feature that enables children under 13 to report nude images and videos in iMessage. Apple is rolling out this protection in Australia, thanks to efforts by the Australian Government and the eSafety Commissioner. Apple plans to implement this important feature globally. Such victories are both inspiring and scalable.

“In five to ten years, we’ll have prevention programmes that will seem as easy and obvious as infant car seats. We’ll have a strong team of programmes, not only for wealthy countries, that can be disseminated and adopted in different ways around the world,” says Elizabeth Letourneau, director of Johns Hopkins’ Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse.

‘A Vision to Zero’ is a call to action. It brings together a new global community dedicated to ending child sexual violence, and it offers a roadmap for protecting children everywhere from sexual violence. This collective power brings a shared vision and hope. “In the years that I’ve been working on this issue, I feel that today seems more hopeful and exciting than ever before,” says Pooja Taparia, the CEO of Arpan, which has launched India’s Child Safety Week campaign to create awareness about childhood sexual abuse.

“To Zero is exactly what we need right now to truly change the world for children,” says Dalia Hashad, formerly from ParentsTogether Action. “By coming together across the globe, we can dream big and accomplish huge things. We have the knowledge, the tools, the connections – and now, with To Zero, we have the collective ambition to drive real progress to keep children everywhere safe.”

“To Zero can be transformational, for the field, for professionals, and for individuals, I think it can give us some sense of collective purpose that has been missing,” says Brigette. “We may all care about ending child sexual abuse, but the idea that we care together to drive change over the long term, not just today and tomorrow, but for a generation, I think will make all the difference in the world.”

Please visit our website to find out more about Oak’s Prevent Child Sexual Abuse Programme. You can find out more about To Zero here, or watch the video below: