To Stop Sexual Violence Against Children, This Funder Hopes to Raise Awareness—and Resources

It’s a hushed, painful secret no one wants to talk about: sexual violence against children. But ignoring it won’t make it go away—indeed, there is evidence that sexual exploitation of children increased during the pandemic.

The Oak Foundation wants to raise awareness of the problem, with the goal of one day ending it once and for all. The foundation recently awarded a $10.3 million grant to Together for Girls, a global partnership working in over 20 countries to end the cycle of sexual violence against children and adolescents. The organization partners with governments and nongovernmental organizations to prevent and respond to sexual violence against children.

The grant will support survivors and allies advocating “for bold public policy solutions and campaigns to shift societal norms and eradicate survivor stigma,” according to the announcement.

The Oak Foundation, based in Geneva, Switzerland, is one of the largest foundations in the world. It is a generous environmental funder, as IP has reported, and focuses on a range of issues that impact the lives of disadvantaged people. The foundation has a sweeping portfolio that includes the environment, international human rights, housing and homelessness, and issues impacting women. It has specific programs in India, Zimbabwe and Brazil.

Oak is also a global leader on the issue of violence against children, including sexual violence. It joins other funders that have prioritized that work, including Porticus, the World Childhood Foundation (founded by Sweden’s Queen Sylvia) and the Human Dignity Foundation, which is in the process of sunsetting operations, and is making some large investments as part of its legacy.

According to Brigette De Lay, director of Oak’s Prevent Child Sexual Abuse Program, the foundation would love to have more funding company. “I always say with both pride and disappointment that we are one of the biggest private funders in this space,” De Lay said. “We give just over $40 million a year for prevention, and we out-fund many governments. When you think of how many kids are impacted and the consequences of child sexual abuse—it shouldn’t be this way.”

“Veiled in silence”

The term “sexual violence” is used to describe a range of behaviors including sexual abuse, incest, rape, intimate partner violence, and online sexual coercion and abuse. While estimates vary, sexual violence targeting children is alarmingly high. According to the organization Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), government authorities respond to a report of child sexual abuse every nine minutes. Perpetrators are typically someone in a position of trust — 93% of child sexual assault victims know their abuser.

According to a report by Together for Girls, The Equality Institute and the Oak Foundation, “An analysis of available data for 24 countries (primarily in high- and middle-income countries) showed that sexual violence in childhood ranged from 8% to 31% for girls and 3% to 17% for boys.”

Research shows that childhood sexual abuse has lifelong consequences. Long-term effects can include depression, PTSD, substance abuse, suicidality, and other mental and physical health issues. Survivors are also more likely to experience intimate partner violence than those who aren’t abused.

Survivors of childhood sexual violence tend to remain silent about their experiences. The average age of disclosure is about 52 years old, according to a study by Child USA. This can make it hard to identify and prosecute perpetrators, and it has also made it difficult to track the problem and educate the public. But in recent years, that has begun to change as revelations of widespread abuse of children by Catholic clergy and the Jeffery Epstein scandal have raised the visibility of the issue, and more survivors come forward to tell their stories.

Together for Girls’ work is also having an impact. The organization’s executive director and CEO, Daniela Ligiero, is herself a survivor of childhood sexual violence. Ligiero is outspoken about her experience, and has inspired other survivors to speak out, as well.

At a town hall for adult survivors of childhood sexual violence held last year, Ligiero told the audience she was sexually abused for years by someone close to her family, beginning at the age of six.

“It has taken me a very long time to be able to say that publicly, out loud, to a room full of strangers,” Ligiero said. “But about 10 years ago, while I was already working on these issues professionally, I decided to start telling my story publicly, beyond just my immediate friends and family, because the silence around this issue was deafening… I’ve decided to make it my life’s work to end sexual violence against children and adolescents… For a while now, I’ve known deep in my bones that we, as survivors, have great power if we are able to unite around a common cause.”

Together for Girls will use the funding from the Oak Foundation to mobilize survivors of childhood sexual violence and make their voices heard. “For too long, sexual violence against children has been veiled in silence, engulfed in shame and sheltered by impunity,” Ligiero said when the grant was announced. “It happens everywhere, in homes, schools, communities, places of worship, sports and online. However, we know sexual violence can be prevented.”

Together for Girls is part of a global movement that is preparing to launch the inaugural World Day for Prevention, Healing and Justice to End Sexual Violence Against Children & Adolescents on November 18, 2021. The observance is already recognized by the Council of Europe and will be observed by communities in more than 55 countries around the globe.

De Lay shares Ligiero’s conviction that survivors will play a critical role in ending sexual violence against children. “We believe that survivors, and particularly adult survivors, can drive… political attention to an issue that has been neglected, marginalized and is fairly invisible,” she said.

“Paupers with a tin cup”

A recent report by WeProtect Global Alliance, another Oak Foundation grantee, spells out the scope of sexual violence against children online, an environment where it is widespread—and appears to be on the rise. The Global Threat Assessment 2021 found that COVID-19, which isolated young people from peers and other sources of support in their communities and at school, “contributed to a significant spike in child sexual exploitation and abuse online.” The report identified a sharp increase in incidents of online grooming, the amount of child sexual abuse material available online, and the sharing of that material.

De Lay believes that the pandemic has also helped raise awareness of the issue. “People tend to think, ‘this can’t happen to my kids, or to kids in my circle; it happens to other people,’” she said. “But with COVID and everything moving online, people realized that this is also my problem. This could happen to my kids so easily, because it’s only a click away.”

But despite this growing awareness, De Lay was quick to say that the $10.3 million gift from Oak is not enough; she hopes that other funders will step in to help. “I always say those of us working on this issue are like paupers with a tin cup,” she said. “We need some of the big funders in the space—we need MacKenzie Scott, we need Michael Bloomberg. We need some of the big funders to come in and get behind this issue the way they have around other issues that people thought were unsolvable.”

The relative lack of funding—and funders—in this space makes it brittle. While Oak’s support is laudable, having nonprofits rely on steady support from only a handful of funders makes it all the more painful when one of those funders pulls its support or exits the scene. Note that the Human Dignity Foundation is sunsetting, and recall nonprofits’ pain last year when the NoVo Foundation, a key backer of women’s and girls’ issues, pared down its grantmaking in the middle of the COVID outbreak.

As long as women’s and girls’ issues, and the problem of sexual violence, remain overlooked by many philanthropies, this brittleness will be a limiting factor. And even if a MacKenzie Scott or a Mike Bloomberg swoops in with large gifts, that support may not last.

Even so, De Lay is optimistic that a decade from now, opposition to childhood sexual violence will have many more champions—and a more reliable base of support. “In 10 years, I hope we won’t be the biggest funders in this space,” she said. “My hope is that philanthropies and governments will invest deeply in prevention and response, and that justice will be served.”

Note: This post has been updated to correct Oak's annual giving in support of prevention of sexual violence, which is $40 million.

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