72 million children living in conflict zones are at risk of sexual violence by armed groups, says the report prepared by the Save the Children.

News Center- 72 million children, 17 percent of the 426 million children living in conflict areas, globally, or one in six, are living near armed groups that perpetrate sexual violence against them, a new report from Save the Children reveals.

The report shows that nearly 10 times more children are at the risk now than three decades ago and says that the countries where children face the greatest risk of sexual violence in conflict are Colombia, Iraq, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The report entitled, “Weapon of War: Sexual violence against children in conflict” includes the very first analysis of the risk of sexual violence against children living in conflicts between 1990 and 2019. The number of children at risk of sexual assault, currently 426 million, was around 8.5 million in 1990, according to the report of the Save the Children.

The organization's concept of “sexual violence” includes the risk of rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization, forced abortion, sexual mutilation, sexual abuse, and sexual torture at the hands of armed groups, government forces, and law enforcement.

More than 20,000 cases of conflict-related sexual violence against children have been verified by the UN since 2006. Its most recent report on Children and Armed Conflict included 749 confirmed cases of sexual violence against children in 2019 alone. Of these, 98 percent were committed against girls, and the cases attributed to state forces almost doubled from 2018.