The sexual violence perpetrated against minors has become institutionalized and a norm within the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) society, and recent updates indicate that there has been an unprecedented increase in cases having surpassed the year 2022, according to a report by UNICEF.
However, this growth takes place in conditions marked by the resumption of conflict in eastern DRC, where armed conflict, displacement, and the failure of child protection structures have created conditions where children are exposed to the drastic effects of abuse, exploitation, and psychological damage.
Over 35,000 cases of sexual violence against children were recorded across DR Congo in the first nine months of 2025.
“Families say that fear of stigma and retaliation often keeps them from reporting the abuse." – @unicefchief
Learn more details of this new report and how… pic.twitter.com/HPnU560lVr
— UNICEF (@UNICEF) December 30, 2025Why has sexual violence against children surged since 2022?
According to UNICEF, the recent escalation of violence can be linked to the escalation of conflict, particularly in eastern provinces, where groups are known to operate with a large level of impunity. At least 7 million people, including more than 3.5 million children, have been displaced by conflict between the M23 and other groups since 2022.
#DRC: the situation is deteriorating sharply – summary executions, incl of children, cases of sexual & gender-based violence.
Risks of deeper & wider conflict are frighteningly real. The violence must stop immediately. All parties must respect humanitarian law – @volker_turk
— UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) February 18, 2025Displacement camps and communities can be poorly lit, lack security presence, and insufficient measures for the protection of the minors, thus leaving them vulnerable to sexual violence in the course of fleeing, at the point of accessing water, as well as when obtaining food and firewood. Additionally, poverty and food insecurities, currently estimated to impact over 25 million in the country, further increase the vulnerability.
How widespread is the crisis across the country?
The UNICEF publication, The Hidden Scars of Conflict and Silence, records instances of sexual violence against children in each of the DRC’s 26 provinces. This is evidence of the problem being well beyond direct conflict hotspots. This is most evident within those provinces of DRC conflict-affected provinces such as North Kivu, South Kivu, and Ituri.
Nonetheless, large numbers are also recorded in the Kinshasa area as well as the Kasai regions, where rampant cases of poverty, dropping out of school, and lack of food result in the vulnerability of the children to abuse.
What do the latest figures reveal about the scale of abuse?
More than 35,000 cases of sexual violence against children were recorded by providers of child protection, as well as gender-based violence, in the first nine months of 2025 alone, according to the data collected. There were nearly 45,000 cases of sexual violence recorded for the year 2024, which is nearly three times the amount recorded in 2022, comprising 40 percent of the sexual violence cases recorded nationwide.
Sexual violence against children in DR Congo is worsening across the country.
Survivors share their stories and how they are determined to build better lives for themselves.
Share to call for an end to all forms of sexual violence against children. pic.twitter.com/49eTIWcQ6G
— UNICEF (@UNICEF) December 30, 2025“These numbers are likely to represent only a fraction of the true extent of the problem,” estimates UNICEF. “Fear of revenge, stigma, lack of trust in institutions, and lack of access to health and legal systems” are some of the factors that might inhibit survivors in rural or insecure environments from submitting a report of violence.
Who are the children most at risk?
Mostly represented categories are the victims who are adolescent girls, who represent the largest and fastest-growing groups of victims, both in terms of targeted violence and because of their vulnerability as a result of displacement and poverty. Boys are victims of violence too, and they are significantly underrepresented because of social stigma associated with male victims of violence.
?#DRC: UN Officials from @childreninwar, @endrapeinwar, @Refugees & @UNFPA raise alarm at the dramatic impact of prolonged conflict on #women & #children, including increased risk of conflict-related sexual violence on displaced people
?Read: https://t.co/axhrNIIHeg pic.twitter.com/tPdxA7gFwp
— Children and Armed Conflict ? #ProveItMatters (@childreninwar) April 23, 2025What do survivors’ testimonies reveal beyond the numbers?
The text associates the statements of the survivors with statistical data, as they intend to stress the fact each of them is a case of a child’s life selectively and drastically impacted. The survivors mention the tremendous shame and isolation of mind, as well as a loss of trust, but they are determined to take their dignity back.
“Case workers describe mothers walking for hours to reach clinics with daughters who can no longer walk after being assaulted,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “Families say fear of stigma and retaliation often keeps them from reporting the abuse. Stories like these are repeated across provinces, exposing an entrenched crisis driven by insecurity, inequality and weak support systems.”
How are children themselves speaking out?
Children caught up in conflict are taking advantage of international platforms to have their voices heard. “My role is not in an armed conflict,” a child wrote to the leaders of the world via the Prove It Matters campaign conducted by the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of Children and Armed Conflict, saying that they are part of.
To close out the year in 2025, United Nations Special Representative Vanessa Frazier highlighted that “children in the DRC and in other conflict situations are suffering at an abnormally high level of violation in 2024, which has already proven to be the worst year on record since the beginning of this mandate nearly thirty years ago, and we must ensure that these abuses are not normalized.”
The DRC, together with Gaza, Haiti, Myanmar, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, and Ukraine, were identified by Frazier as territories where “children continued to suffer appalling levels of grave violation in 2025.”
How are funding cuts worsening risks for children?
Despite the strengthened support rendered by UNICEF and other actors from the period of 2022 to 2024, which targeted over 24,200 children in the most affected provinces in the previous year, the rising levels of insecurity and global funding constraints are threatening the response. As of mid-2025, support offered to only 23 percent of the GBV programs compared to the 48 percent in 2022.
This has resulted in the downscaling or closing of many safe spaces, mobile clinics, and protection programs, putting the lives of an estimated 300,000 children in conflict zones in the eastern part of the country and an additional hundreds of thousands of others at increased risk.
“A protected child is a secure future,” another child affected by conflict told world leaders through the Prove It Matters campaign—an appeal that UNICEF warns the international community can no longer afford to ignore.