Support provided to child and adolescent victims of sexual violence in the United Kingdom falls significantly below what researchers describe as “bare minimum” standards, according to a new global study. The UK ranked 23rd out of 60 countries in access to “timely, free, and multi-disciplinary” support, trailing behind nations such as Australia, Brazil, and Kazakhstan.
Global Index Findings
The Out of the Shadows global index evaluates 60 countries on their approaches to protecting children from sexual abuse across four categories: governance and accountability, prevention, healing, and justice. While the UK secured second place overall with a score of 78 out of 100—beaten only by Australia’s 83—its performance dropped sharply when assessing victim support specifically.
Elly Vaughan, who led the research at Economist Impact, told The Independent that a heavy reliance on the charitable sector across the country is leaving survivors with “unequal” access to support. In some areas, survivors can access integrated “barnahus” hubs, where multiple agencies collaborate under one roof, a model linked to higher prosecution rates. However, in other regions, survivors are forced to repeat their stories to different agencies, a process that can “re-traumatise” victims and deter them from seeking justice or healing. Vaughan emphasised that barnahus hubs are “not just convenient” but also yield better outcomes for survivors.
Call for National Survivors Council
Researchers urged the government to establish a national survivors council to help shape policy, stressing that more must be done to ensure effective support. Dr. Daniela Ligiero, chief executive of Together for Girls, highlighted the “important role” of individuals with lived experience in forming policy. “Lived experience can help improve the implementation of programmes by highlighting the realities on the ground of what victims and survivors are experiencing,” she explained. Such councils already exist in Germany and Australia, but much of the world lags behind, she noted.
All 60 countries in the ranking are failing to take meaningful steps to keep children safe from sexual violence, according to Dr. Ligiero, who described a perfect score as a minimum benchmark. The average score across all nations was just 53, with Saudi Arabia ranking lowest at 29.5. “As a whole, we’re not close to where we need to be when it comes to these issues for children,” she said. “The majority of countries fall under a 70 out of 100. That to me says there is a lot of progress that still needs to be made. They are the bare minimum. If we can’t even have the bare minimum in place it is going to be really hard for us to protect children and adolescents the way we believe they need to be protected.”
Reactions from Advocacy Groups
Matthew McVarish, co-founder of the UK branch of the survivors network Brave Movement, described the UK’s score as “alarming.” “It highlights how much work still urgently needs to be done before all children are truly safe,” he said. “Many victims and survivors still lack access to any kind of support and two key funding streams for survivor support services have closed since the Index data was gathered.” He added that the government has failed to fully implement the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). “Unless urgent action is taken, the UK’s score of 65 out of 100 for its efforts to support healing will fall even further next year. This is no time for complacency. The Index shows how far we still have to go – and provides a clear roadmap for what governments must do to end sexual violence.”
A government spokesperson responded: “We are committed to continuing our world-leading action to tackle child sexual abuse. We are taking meaningful steps to safeguard children, pursue offenders, and support victims and survivors by delivering IICSA’s recommendations in full. That includes setting up a new Child Protection Authority and victims and survivors panel, alongside bringing in a mandatory duty to report child sexual abuse and making it a crime to interfere with the duty to report.”
