In a sobering revelation that underscores the hidden epidemic of violence affecting the world’s youngest and most vulnerable, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has disclosed that approximately 1.6 billion children worldwide — equivalent to two out of every three children — experience violent discipline from caregivers in their own homes. This staggering figure lays bare the uncomfortable truth that for hundreds of millions of children, the place that should be their safest sanctuary is instead a setting of fear and harm.
The data, released on Wednesday in an official statement signed by Claudia Cappa, Senior Adviser in UNICEF’s Data and Analytics Section within the Division of Data, Analytics, Planning and Monitoring, paints an even more complex picture of intergenerational violence. Beyond direct physical punishment, UNICEF reports that roughly one in four children globally — around 610 million boys and girls — currently live in households where their mothers have suffered physical, sexual, or emotional abuse at the hands of an intimate partner within the past twelve months alone.
Claudia Cappa emphasized that these findings expose the pervasive reach of violence into children’s everyday lives, often occurring behind closed doors in environments where children are supposed to feel most protected. “The home should be a refuge, yet for far too many children it is a place where violence is normalized,” she stated.
A groundbreaking aspect of the new UNICEF analysis is its first-ever detailed regional breakdown of children’s indirect exposure to intimate partner violence through their mothers. This enhanced geographic mapping offers the clearest global snapshot to date of where the risks are most acute. According to the report, children living in Oceania, Central and Southern Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa face the highest likelihood of residing with a mother who has experienced partner abuse. In these regions, cultural, economic, and systemic factors often compound the problem, leaving both women and children trapped in cycles of violence with limited avenues for escape or support.
The consequences for children growing up in such households are profound and long-lasting. Exposure to domestic violence — even when the child is not the indirect victim — has been consistently linked to impaired brain development, heightened anxiety and depression, poorer educational outcomes, and an increased probability of perpetuating violent behavior in adulthood. Compounding this trauma, many of these same children also endure direct violent discipline themselves, including beating, slapping, or other forms of corporal punishment that remain socially accepted in numerous societies despite overwhelming evidence of their harm.
Cappa was unequivocal in linking the dual crises of violence against women and violence against children: “You cannot end violence against children without also ending violence against women. The safety and well-being of mothers and their children are inseparable.” When a mother lives in fear or experiences abuse, her capacity to provide consistent, nurturing care is inevitably undermined, creating a toxic environment that affects every dimension of a child’s growth — physical, emotional, cognitive, and social.
To break these intertwined cycles, UNICEF is urgently calling for multifaceted, coordinated action on several fronts. First, governments must strengthen and rigorously enforce laws that explicitly criminalize all forms of violence against women and children, including corporal punishment in the home and intimate partner violence. Second, child protection systems and domestic violence services need far better integration and coordination so that a report of partner abuse automatically triggers child-welfare safeguards, and vice versa.
Third, and perhaps most crucially over the long term, societies must confront and dismantle the harmful social norms, attitudes, and beliefs that continue to excuse, minimize, or even encourage violent discipline and partner abuse. This includes challenging notions that physical punishment is an acceptable or effective way to raise children, or that what happens between partners behind closed doors is a private family matter rather than a public health and human-rights emergency.
The UNICEF statement serves as a stark reminder that, despite decades of global commitments — from the Convention on the Rights of the Child to the Sustainable Development Goals’ pledge to end all forms of violence against children by 2030 — the world remains far off track. With 1.6 billion children still subjected to violent discipline and more than 600 million witnessing or living in the shadow of their mother’s abuse, the scale of inaction is intolerable.
Ending this crisis will require political will, sustained investment in prevention and response services, and a collective refusal to accept violence as an inevitable part of childhood or family life. As Claudia Cappa and UNICEF make clear, the well-being of the next generation depends on our willingness to protect both mothers and children from the scourge of violence — not tomorrow, but starting today.
The full extent of this global emergency demands immediate attention from policymakers, communities, and individuals alike. No child should grow up believing that violence is love disguised as discipline, and no mother should face abuse while the world looks away. The data are in; the solutions are known. What remains is the courage to act.
