Types of violence against children

Most violence against children involves at least one of six main types of interpersonal violencea that tend to occur at different stages in a child’s development  (9) :
• Maltreatment (including violent punishment) involves physical, sexual and psychological/emotional violence; and neglect of infants, children and adolescents by parents, caregivers and other authority figures, most often in the home but also in settings such as schools and orphanages.
• Bullying (including cyber-bullying) is unwanted aggressive behaviour by another child or group of children who are neither siblings nor in a romantic relationship with the victim. It involves repeated physical, psychological or social harm, and often takes place in schools and other settings where children gather, and online.
• Youth violence is concentrated among those aged 10–29 years, occurs most often in community settings between acquaintances and strangers, includes physical assault with weapons (such as guns and knives) or without weapons, and may involve gang violence.
• Intimate partner violence (or domestic violence)
 involves violence by an intimate partner or ex-partner.
Although males can also be victims, intimate partner violence disproportionately affects females. It commonly occurs against girls within child and early/ forced marriages. Among romantically involved but unmarried adolescents it is sometimes called “dating violence”.
• Sexual violence includes non-consensual completed or attempted sexual contact; non-consensual acts of a sexual nature not involving contact (such as voyeurism or sexual harassment); acts of sexual trafficking committed against someone who is unable to consent or refuse; and online exploitation.
• Emotional or psychological violence and witnessing violence includes restricting  a child’s movements, denigration, ridicule, threats and intimidation, discrimination, rejection and other non-physical forms of hostile treatment. Witnessing violence can involve forcing a child to observe an act of violence, or the incidental witnessing of violence between two or more other persons.

When directed against girls or boys because of their biological sex or gender identity, any of these types of violence can also constitute gender-based violence.

http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/inspire/en/