Learn Without Fear global campaign report
Plan's new report, the most comprehensive global examination of school violence yet, focuses on 3 major areas: sexual violence, corporal punishment and bullying.
The report shows that children across the world are sexually and physically abused by adults with a duty to protect them. Violence in schools is too often viewed as acceptable or necessary by education authorities, parents and governments. But the evidence uncovered shows it causes lasting mental and physical suffering.
Outrageous violation
Violence is an outrageous violation of children's fundamental rights. Education is supposed to unlock children's potential, not condemn them to an uncertain and vulnerable future.
The report shows that:
- Girls as young as 10 are being forced to have sex by their teachers to pass exams, and threatened with poor grades and failure if they refuse.
- Every year, more than 350,000,000 children suffer some type of violence in school. That's equivalent to more than the entire population of the United States.
- 90 countries continue to allow teachers to legally use corporal punishment and laws in countries that do ban it are often poorly enforced.
Violence in schools ruins the one real chance of a better and more prosperous life for many children, and denies the communities and countries of a vital national asset. And all this is going on everyday, everywhere in schools that are supposed to nurture and protect children.
All violence against children is preventable. It does not need to happen.
Plan wants to put a stop to violence in schools. That's why we have created Learn Without Fear.
Will you join us?
Download the Learn Without Fear report
Download a summary of the report
- English (527kb | 8 pages)
- Français (575kb | 8 pages)
- Espanõl (564kb | 8 pages)
- Português (478kb | 8 pages)
Supporting research
Plan's report drew heavily on 3 commissioned pieces of research:
- Painful lessons: the politics of preventing sexual violence and bullying at school by the Overseas Development Institute (in English only - 712kb | 92 pages)
- Expel violence! A systematic review of interventions to prevent corporal punishment, sexual violence and bullying in schools by the International Observatory on Violence in Schools (in English only - 284kb | 22 pages)
- School violence in OECD countries by Karen Moore, Nicola Jones and Emma Broadbent (in English only - 648kb | 182 pages)
