Lancet Commission on GBV and Maltreatment of Young People
Summary
The Lancet Commission on Gender-Based Violence and the Maltreatment of Young People commits to pathbreaking report on the global response to violence across the lifecourse, complete with new data insights and concrete policy and research recommendations that are informed by survivors and advocates. This report, which will be published in the world’s premier medical journal, The Lancet, will outline 1) the burden of violence across the lifecourse; 2) the economic cost of violence to society; 3) opportunities to integrate international and national policies across gender and age to prevent violence; and 4) measure and highlight the role of activism in policy change and violence incidence. All four will be written by a multidisciplinary, multi-regional, team of experts. The report will serve to chart a course for the next steps in violence research and advocacy as well as better integrate violence into global health measurement and response, in a research-to-action framework implemented through national, regional, and global governmental and civil society institutions in partnership with academia.
Approach
The Lancet Commission on Gender-based Violence and Maltreatment of Young People – the core of this commitment – endeavors to develop and disseminate new data and research to span the continuum of care from prevention to survivorship, the lifecycle from childhood to adulthood, and engage a range of economic and social sectors. This intersectoral, interdisciplinary approach engages communities of thought that seldom connect, including public health, health systems, mental health, economics, law, gender, digital health and artificial intelligence, and children’s rights to reimagine a world without violence and set a course to make this a reality.
The Commission commits to a pathbreaking report on the global response to violence across the life-course, complete with new data insights and concrete policy and research recommendations informed by survivors and advocates. This report, which will be published in the world’s premier medical journal with a target of early 2025, will outline 1) how new and evolving forms of violence are contributing to the burden of violence on individuals and health systems; 2) the economic toll of violence at a country and global level, as well as a sound economic- and human rights-based argument for investing in violence prevention; 3) how international conventions and national policies regarding gender-based violence and violence against children align, map the gaps in these policies, and give concrete recommendations for how to better integrate these historically disparate areas of research and advocacy; and 4) outline and quantify the impact of social movements and women’s advocacy on policy change and rates of violence across discrete low- and middle-income countries. We aim to implement this report through a public-facing series of launch events paired with ongoing implementation through partnerships with international organizations (e.g. PMNCH, Together for Girls, Breeze of Hope Foundation) and country-based institutions (e.g. Tómatelo a Pecho, FUNSULUD, University of Cape Town, University of Toronto) . These partners will take the findings of the Commission and contextualize them to their specific contexts to spur additional advocacy, funding, research, and policy change in our focus countries and internationally.
Action Plan
The Commission is already well underway and aims to publish its final report in early 2025. Key milestones:
September 2023: Commitment Made at CGI in New York
October 2023: initiate policy dialogues in Mexico, Brazil, Pakistan and South Africa that will continue through to and beyond report launch
Q2 to Q3 2024: draft report complete and submitted to The Lancet
Ongoing throughout: publication of background and companion papers on reformulating need for action and costs of inaction
Q4, 2024: Working group meetings held: Miami, FL (deliverable: preliminary country-level epidemiological and economic estimates) Q1 2025: Report publication
Q1 2025-Q1 2026: Report launch series including CGI
Q2, 2025: beginning of post-Commission partnerships
Background
Violence against women (VAW) and young people and children (VAC) is persistent and perverse, with over a third of women and girls experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) or non-partner physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. Nearly a quarter of all adults worldwide report physical abuse as children, and the lifetime prevalence of childhood sexual abuse is unacceptably high for both sexes, although more frequent for girls (almost 20%) than boys (almost 10%) . Few, if any health conditions or risk factors affect such large segments of the global population, and people living in poverty and vulnerable situations, including forced migration and humanitarian emergencies, are especially at risk. VAC/VAW and Gender Based Violence (GBV) violate fundamental human rights to equality, non-discrimination, life, health, security of the person, privacy, freedom from torture, and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment. The effects impact whole societies and economies—they increase demands on overstretched health systems and perpetuate poverty and gender inequality by constraining educational attainment and economic productivity of the survivor and their family. While resilience is a hallmark of survivorship, many live with long-term effects that constitute risk factors for lifetime physical, sexual and reproductive, and mental health, and the intergenerational cycle of violence and trauma can cause a legacy of suffering.
VAW/VAC/GBV are a public health priority, an equity imperative, a travesty of human rights, and an economic sinkhole. The voices of survivors and their families have been stifled by fear and stigma. The benefits of reducing the impact of violence against women and young people are huge because they will catalyze human, social, and economic development in ways that are essential for meeting many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) .
Response to this gendered public health and human rights issue is hampered by a lack of holistic data that accounts for the multitude of forms of violence, their extent, and their differential impact on health. The extent of the health and economic costs of violence is largely unknown due to the lack of data that represents the outsized impact of violence in low- and middle-income countries and historically separate work of the GBV and VAC research and activist communities.
Progress Update
The Lancet Commission on Violence Against Women and Children has made substantial progress toward the development of its final report. In May 2024, the Commission’s writing group convened in person in Edinburgh, in partnership with Childlight Global Child Safety Institute University of Edinburgh, to develop the report structure, align on key messages, and integrate evidence across thematic areas. Since that convening, momentum has been sustained and a full draft is now complete and undergoing internal revisions, with a submission goal to the Lancet of September 2025 and publication in the first half of 2026.
In parallel, the Commission has produced several foundational pieces of research that directly inform the report. The first study, Health effects associated with exposure of children to physical violence, psychological violence and neglect: a Burden of Proof study, provides a systematic and quantitative assessment of the causal relationships between various forms of childhood maltreatment and long-term health outcomes. The second study quantifies the health burden associated with different forms of gender-based violence in adulthood and adolescence, identifying significant risks for depressive disorders, anxiety, and substance use, among others and shows this to be more significant than previously understood. Most recently, Prevalence of sexual violence against children and age at first exposure: a global analysis by location, age, and sex (1990–2023) offers the most comprehensive global estimates to date on the prevalence and timing of sexual violence against children, revealing that exposure often begins in early adolescence and varies significantly by region and sex. Additionally, a paper assessing government policies on GBV and research pieces on costing the impacts of gender based violence and the emerging threat of cyberviolence on women and children are also in development. Together, these studies help inform the Commission’s final recommendations, which aim to reshape global understanding and responses to violence.
Partnership Opportunities
This global effort requires financial investment. Our experts receive no compensation for their efforts toward the Commission. However, to be effective and to catalyze action we require additional funding for early career researchers, researchers and staff and organization in low- and middle-income countries. We request any financial contributions that can help us empower these civil society organizations, researchers and early career researchers and activists to help the Commission achieve its goals and take the findings and recommendations forward into action., The Lancet Commission on Gender-Based Violence and the Maltreatment of Young People brings together a set of the world’s leading experts in the prevention of gender-based violence and violence against children. We are keen to lend consultative support, collaboration, and information on best practices in violence prevention, epidemiology, social accounting methodology, and policy analysis as well as collaborate with actors and NGOs in country. With the report of the Commission, we will provide actors from around the world with transformative data on the costs of inaction and the value and urgency of action, positioning VAC/VAW/GBV as a leading global health priority.