Violence Cannot Be Prevented Without Civil Society

Ending violence against children in and through schools requires more than high-level government commitments. True change at scale needs active inclusion and leadership from civil society actors in global decision-making spaces, sharing their expertise and experience in designing, implementing and scaling interventions that reach vast numbers of childhoods. 

On 17 June 2026, Chandre Gould of the Institute of Security Studies (ISS, South Africa), Paula Wachter of Red por la Infancia (Argentina), Hope Wambi of Raising Voices (Uganda) and the Coalition’s Africa Hub and I came together in a webinar to articulate this central conviction, supported by examples and experiences from Latin America, Africa and Asia. 

The webinar allowed the Asia Hub to unpack how civil society organisations continue to co-lead the field of violence prevention – particularly in and through schools – across our vast and diverse region.

Asia is home to the largest school-going population globally, with an estimated one in three of these children experiencing violence at school. Corporal punishment and bullying remain the most common forms, with cyberbullying becoming an emerging threat. Childhood violence persists at the intersection of social, cultural, policy and institutional factors. Its prevention cannot rest with governments alone.

At the Coalition’s Asia Hub, member organisations and experts are working to end violence in and through schools in 8 countries across South and Southeast Asia. By coming together to build a unified regional voice through learning circles, evidence synthesis, working groups and consultations, we want to ensure that regional and global advocacy to prevent violence is grounded in current, contextual evidence and in the practice-based learning of organisations working directly with school-going children and other school-related stakeholders. 

Civil Society Organisations’ Regional Influence

A 2025 mapping of stakeholders working in the prevention ecosystem across Asia, led by the Asia Hub, confirmed to us that civil society already holds substantial capacity to lead the growing prevention movement. The mapping covered 119 organisations across South, Southeast and East Asia, of which 88% hold explicit child protection mandates in schools, 80% run prevention programmes directly in schools, and 94% are seeking further collaboration across the region on their school-related prevention work. 

Yet these same organisations rated their own influence in the region as consistently low, even where their national influence is strong. This made clear to us that while significant commitment and expertise exist, meaningful representation in regional and global decision-making is lagging. 

It is critical for civil society actors – particularly those rooted in the Global South – to come together and create spaces for coordinated regional actors and regional networks to shape prevention agendas, rather than respond to agendas determined elsewhere. 

It is equally important for those convening global and regional dialogues – whether conferences, policy dialogues, summits or roundtables – to ensure that national and regional civil society actors not only get seats at the table, but are integral to the planning and agenda-setting for the conversations.

Preparing for Manila

As we prepare for the Second Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children in Manila this November, our roadmap rests on three commitments: 

✅ to consolidate our evidence through regional consultations and reports,

✅ document stories of change of civil society organisations, voices of young people and school-related stakeholders and,

✅ focus attention on the contribution of civil society in violence prevention by bringing normally missing voices to the conversation. 

Taken together, we are demonstrating concretely how civil society organisations in the Global South are not peripheral to this work, but central to it. 

You can watch the recording of the webinar, co-hosted by ISS, Save the Children South Africa, and Raising Voices, on ISS’ website here: Violence cannot be prevented without civil society | ISS Africa 

If you would like to join the Asia Hub’s campaign in the lead-up to the Manila Ministerial, write to us at co*************@******ev.com. 

Author: Sharanya Gautam is the Coordinator at the Coalition for Good Schools’ Asia Hub.