Author: Marci A. Hamilton

Marci A. Hamilton is the founder and CEO of CHILD USA, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit academic thinktank dedicated to interdisciplinary, evidence-based research to improve laws and public policy to end child abuse and neglect. She is also a professor of practice in the political science department and a resident senior fellow in the Program for Research on Religion at the University of Pennsylvania. Before moving to Penn., Hamilton held the Paul R. Verkuil chair in public law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.

Ending the Global Child Sex Abuse Crisis

For the first time in history, the United Nations General Assembly has designated a new annual World Day for the prevention of child sexual exploitation—and it couldn’t come soon enough.

One in five women and one in 13 men worldwide have been sexually abused as children, and 120 million girls and young women under 20 years old have been victims of forced sexual contact. Countless victims around the globe are silenced by bad laws and some countries’ legal agreements with the Roman Catholic Church that weaken, and at times completely dismantle, their opportunity for justice.