INSPIRE: Seven strategies for ending violence against children

What is it?

The World Health Organization (WHO) along with the Centers for Disease Control, the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Together for Girls, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), and the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children came together to create an evidence-based technical package of interventions to help countries and communities to prevent and respond to violence against children and adolescents. INSPIRE builds on the knowledge contained in the CDC-developed THRIVES technical package, and targets what is predictable and preventable about violence. INSPIRE also urges countries and communities to provide support and services when children are victimized.

Why is it important?

• At least a billion children suffer some form of violence each year, but violence against children is not an inevitable part of life. It is preventable.
• Violence against children is an urgent and public health problem of epidemic proportions—and like other public health problems it can be contagious within communities and spread from one generation to the next.
• Being a victim of or witness to violence as a child can result in a lifetime of health risks including impairing brain development and damage to other parts of the nervous system, as well as endocrine, circulatory, musculoskeletal, reproductive, respiratory and immune systems.
• Our children deserve the opportunity to thrive. Growing up in safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments—is the right of every child.

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