A convening report from the INSPIRE Evidence Lab sets out priorities, trade-offs, and next steps for measuring childhood sexual violence
Reliable data are foundational to preventing childhood sexual violence (CSV), a harm that is hidden, stigmatised, and systematically under-reported. Over the past two decades, the field built an unusually LMIC-centred evidence base, largely through the Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS). That work showed that CSV can be measured, and in Kenya, Eswatini, and Tanzania, that it can decline. That infrastructure has now been dismantled, just as investment in prevention is contracting.
To take stock of what comes next, the INSPIRE Evidence Lab at Georgia State University convened researchers, practitioners, civil society representatives, advocates, and funders alongside the SVRI Forum 2026 in Bangkok on 9 October 2026, with support from the Oak Foundation. Today we are releasing the convening report, Envisioning the future of data on childhood sexual violence.
The report sets out a framework that matches data needs to methods. National prevalence, sub-national estimates, survivor narratives, and evidence on what works each call for different approaches. It also makes explicit the trade-offs every data choice involves: speed versus confidence, comparability versus local fit, breadth versus depth, and knowing the scale of the problem versus knowing what reduces it.
Participants were clear that rigour is not negotiable, that depth matters more than reach, and that local relevance and comparability must be held together. Most of all, they called for priorities to be set collectively and upstream, with governments and survivors at the table.
The report comes as governments prepare to report on their commitments at the Second Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children in Manila on 18–19 November. We hope it will inform conversations there and beyond about how to rebuild CSV data systems that are rigorous, ethical, and responsive to country needs. Read and download the report.
Suggested citation: Massetti, G.M., & Cagney, J. (2026). Envisioning the future of data on childhood sexual violence: A convening report. Atlanta, GA: INSPIRE Evidence Lab.
