INSTITUTIONAL DRIVERS
COMMUNITY RISK FACTORS
INTERPERSONAL RISK FACTORS
Weak child protection systems or ineffective system response
19
Harmful cultural rites and religious doctrines relating to hierarchy, authority,
gender, and punishment
20-21
Quality of school relationships including lack of school connectedness,
teachers reinforcing or perpetrating violence
22-23
Poor school governance including lack of adequate training in pedagogical
skills and child development, under-resourced schools and teachers, unequal
application of school rules
25-26
Weak legal structure and/or ineffective policies to protect children, lack of
coordination between formal and informal justice mechanisms and service
providers (i.e. traditional leaders, community groups)
27-28
Early experience of violence and conflict before adolescence, including
witnessing domestic violence
39-43
Sex selection
44
Family stress including poverty and unemployment
45-46
Family structure including marital status, parental absence,
double-orphanhood
47-50
Family context such as parents’ histories of abuse, substance use, education,
occupation(s), financial status, illness/health
51-52
Quality of peer relationships inclusion/exclusion from same age networks
53
Quality of family relationships inclusion/exclusion from family/kin networks
54-55
Isolation or degree of family isolation
56
Urban and/or rural environments may have varying risks of violence
30-31
Harmful cultural practices and/or social norms that support violence, including
taboos
32-33
Quality of community relationships such as the lack of community
connectedness and trust; perceptions of community safety
34-35
Code of silence around all types of violence
36-37
Age and gender
are also central to this
study. A child’s vulnerability and ability
to protect herself from violence changes
over time with her evolving capacities. It
is important to recognise how girls and
boys may develop differently especially
as they move through childhood and into
adolescence.
71-72
There is no global consensus around
categorizing
children’s
and
young
people’s stages of life and regional or sub-
regional variations may also be expected.
The timeline used here is based on a
classification by PAHO* to illustrate how
boys and girls may proceed through the
stages of adolescence at different times.
INDIVIDUAL RISK FACTORS
Beliefs about gender roles or the acceptability of punishment and violence
58-61
Vulnerability due to age, ethnicity, or disability
62-65
Behavioural problems such as a lack of empathy and externalising these
behaviours among children
66-67
Biological sex
68
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
PRE-
ADOLESCENCE
YOUTH
YOUNG
ADULTHOOD
MIDDLE
ADOLESCENCE
MIDDLE
ADOLESCENCE
EARLY
ADOLESCENCE
LATE
ADOLESCENCE
EARLY
ADOLESCENCE
LATE
ADOLESCENCE
PRE-
ADOLESCENCE
YOUTH
YOUNG
ADULTHOOD
GIRLS
BOYS
Age
AGE AND GENDER
VIET NAM
Local authorities claim they do not have a complete understanding of trafficking of all
children, especially for boys aged 10-25 years, affecting both documentation and response.
29
ITALY
Trafficked Nigerian girls are threatened with retribution against themselves and relatives at
home if they try to escape or fail to pay back their debt; this includes the manipulative use of traditional
spiritual practices to maintain control over the girls and their families.
38
PERU
Some girls (aged 13-17 years old) involved in transactional sex persuade their female peers to
also engage in transactional sex.
57
ZIMBABWE
Girls, aged 13-17, are more likely to experience forced sex than boys of the same age.
69
VIET NAM
Boys, aged 5 – 9, are more likely to experience violent discipline in the home and school than
girls of the same age.
47,70
PAGE
3
* PAHO: Pan American Health Organization