Country: World Source: UN Children’s Fund Please refer to the attached file. Overview Despite a proliferation of measurement activities over the past two decades to address persistent data gaps on violence against children, some forms of violence have not received sufficient investment to standardize their measurement, including sexual violence. The different approaches, definitions and methodologies used to gather data have made it challenging to monitor sexual violence against children across countries and over time. To respond to these challenges, UNICEF has embarked on work to develop and validate a dedicated survey module on sexual violence against children. As the first step in its development, UNICEF conducted a scoping review of data collection tools that measure sexual violence against children.1 The review facilitated the creation of an inventory (or bank) of items (or questions) for further testing and validation. This document summarizes the findings of the scoping review and the resulting item inventory. The review did not include all existing data collection tools. Rather, it focused on: 1) tools used in studies and surveys on violence implemented between 2000 and 2023; 2) reasonably recent and widely used tools, defined as those which have been used in several studies or surveys and/or implemented in more than one context or high-quality national or international prevalence studies on violence; and 3) the content of such tools, particularly the items used to collect information. The review did not evaluate or assess aspects of the implementation of the tools within studies or surveys (e.g., sample size and design, field team selection and composition, content and length of interviewer training, data quality control procedures, ethical practices). Similarly, it did not summarize the development, validation or psychometric properties of individual tools, which are documented in detail in other papers and articles. The list at the end of this report includes key reference documents and articles for each of the 19 reviewed tools. Using the inventory bank as a foundation, the objective is for the new survey module to generate robust and comparable data for monitoring purposes and for informing national violence prevention efforts. The module will aim to cover all forms of sexual violence against children, including rape, sexual assault and non-contact forms, such as online sexual violence. It will be designed for population-level measurement of the prevalence of sexual violence in childhood among both boys and girls and will be recommended for inclusion in national household surveys.

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