Nearly 43 million adolescent girls have experienced violence. What does violence during adolescence mean for their health, education, relationships and future?
For millions of girls, adolescence should be a time of learning, friendships and discovering what they want from adulthood.
Instead, for an estimated 43 million girls aged 15–19 worldwide, violence has already been part of that journey.
Nearly three in 10 adolescent girls in this age group had experienced intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once by 2023, according to a new analysis by the World Health Organization (WHO), HRP and UN partners.
The number is difficult to comprehend at a human level. But behind it are girls whose health, education, relationships and opportunities may be altered by experiences they should never have had to endure.
The question, therefore, is not only how many girls experience violence.
It is what kind of future are we leaving them?
Violence can begin before adulthood
The WHO analysis estimates that 23% of adolescent girls aged 15–19 who have ever had a partner have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner at least once.
For an estimated 16%, the violence was not something confined to the distant past. They had experienced intimate partner violence within the previous year.
Another 8% of all girls aged 15–19 had experienced sexual violence by someone other than a partner at least once.
These figures represent different forms of violence, and the estimates should not be added together to calculate the number of individual survivors. But together they reveal how early violence can enter girls’ lives.
And even these numbers are unlikely to capture the full picture.
Many girls do not report violence or disclose what has happened to them. Fear, stigma, dependence on the perpetrator, concerns about family or community reactions and a lack of safe services can all make speaking out difficult.
The statistics, therefore, tell us something important — but they do not tell us everything.
The consequences can extend far beyond the incident
Violence can leave physical injuries. But its effects do not necessarily end when an incident is over.
WHO links violence against adolescent girls with unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and mental health conditions including anxiety and depression.
There can also be consequences that are less immediately visible.
A girl struggling with the effects of violence may miss school or eventually leave education. An unintended pregnancy can make continuing education more difficult. Fear or restrictions imposed by an abusive partner or family can limit her ability to move freely or participate in school and community life.
Over time, these disruptions can affect employment and economic independence.
This is why violence during adolescence cannot be treated simply as an isolated incident of harm.
It can interfere with the foundations on which adulthood is built.
A girl who loses access to education may have fewer choices later. A young woman without an independent income may find it harder to leave an abusive relationship. Someone without access to healthcare or social support may have even fewer options.
The consequences can reinforce one another.
When childhood ends early
The WHO analysis also highlights the relationship between violence and the wider conditions in which girls grow up.
Countries with higher rates of child marriage, lower educational attainment among girls and discriminatory property and inheritance laws tend to have higher levels of intimate partner violence.
That does not mean any one factor automatically causes violence. But it shows how social and economic inequality can shape vulnerability.
Child marriage is particularly important.
When a girl is married before she is ready, she may enter an adult relationship while still dependent on others and before she has completed her education.
The responsibilities can arrive all at once: managing a household, caring for relatives, becoming a wife and potentially becoming a mother.
A service provider quoted in Bangladesh’s 2024 Violence Against Women Survey described girls as young as 12 or 13 being married and expected to manage households and meet their husbands’ demands.
“When they struggle, violence often starts,” the service provider said.
The problem, then, is not simply that a girl is exposed to violence.
It is that she may be placed in circumstances where she has little power to prevent it, leave it or recover from it.
Education is more than a classroom
Keeping girls in school is one of the measures identified by WHO as part of preventing violence.
Education cannot guarantee safety. But it can expand choices.
Staying in secondary school can delay marriage, strengthen knowledge and skills, improve future employment prospects and give girls greater access to information about health and rights.
It can also give girls a social environment outside the home where trusted adults may recognise changes in behaviour or signs that something is wrong.
That makes education policy part of the wider conversation about violence prevention.
So are laws governing marriage, property, inheritance and protection from violence.
A girl cannot be expected to build an independent future if the legal and social systems around her restrict her choices.
What happens when a girl needs help?
For a survivor, the existence of a law or a helpline does not necessarily mean help is accessible.
A girl may need medical treatment, sexual and reproductive healthcare, mental health support, legal assistance or protection from further violence.
She may also need help returning to school.
WHO and its partners are calling for adolescent-responsive, survivor-centred services that can provide appropriate healthcare and support.
That distinction matters.
A service designed for adults may not be equipped to deal with the realities of a 15- or 16-year-old seeking help. Adolescents may fear that confidentiality will not be respected or that seeking assistance will bring punishment or stigma at home.
A system that technically exists but feels unsafe or inaccessible cannot provide meaningful protection.
The girls who never become statistics
There is another uncomfortable reality behind the numbers.
Violence against girls is often hidden.
A girl may tell a friend but never report to authorities. She may remain silent because the perpetrator is a partner, relative or someone her family trusts. She may fear being blamed for what happened.
That means surveys and official records can only capture part of the problem.
Better data is essential for understanding where violence occurs and which girls are most at risk. But collecting that information must never come at the expense of a survivor’s safety, privacy or dignity.
The goal should not simply be to produce a bigger number.
It should be to understand the conditions behind the number well enough to prevent the next girl from becoming part of it.
Prevention has to start before violence
The latest WHO analysis calls for action across several areas: promoting gender equality, expanding girls’ access to secondary education, ending child marriage, strengthening legal protections, improving support services and investing in better data.
These may sound like separate policy issues.
They are not.
A girl staying in school, being able to delay marriage, having access to healthcare, knowing her rights and having somewhere safe to turn when violence occurs are all connected to the amount of control she has over her own life.
Prevention therefore cannot begin only after a girl reports abuse.
It has to begin much earlier — in families, schools, communities, healthcare systems and laws.
It also requires challenging the social norms that make control over girls appear normal or make violence within relationships difficult to recognise.
What kind of future are we leaving them?
The global figure of 43 million is enormous, but it should not become just another statistic that briefly captures attention before disappearing from the news cycle.
Each number represents a girl whose adolescence has been shaped by an experience of violence.
Some may struggle with physical or mental health consequences. Some may leave school. Some may become pregnant before they are ready. Some may enter adulthood with fewer economic opportunities. Others may carry the effects into future relationships.
And some may never tell anyone what happened.
The WHO says no country is currently on track to eliminate violence against women and girls by 2030.
That makes the question bigger than whether individual girls can be taught to protect themselves.
It asks what families, schools, communities, governments and institutions are doing to create environments where girls are less likely to experience violence in the first place — and where those who do experience it are not left alone with its consequences.
Forty-three million girls have already experienced violence.
The question now is whether the next generation will inherit the same reality.
What kind of future are we leaving them?
Sources
World Health Organization (WHO), HRP and UN partners, Violence against adolescent girls: technical brief and latest estimates, October 5, 2026; Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Violence Against Women Survey 2024.
