Data to Action: Preventing Sexual Violence Against Adolescent Girls

The Together for Girls partnership demonstrates how disaggregated, participatory data collection can lead to powerful visual storytelling and concrete policy action. Through the Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS) and emotionally resonant data visuals, the initiative shifts the narrative around gender-based violence from invisibility to actionable urgency. Objective: To transform nationally representative data on sexual violence against children and adolescents into emotionally compelling and actionable visualizations that can inform national policies, prevention strategies, and public awareness campaigns. Audience: Primarily aimed at policymakers, public health officials, civil society organizations, and advocates working on gender-based violence. Also accessible to the general public and media for awareness-raising purposes. Context: Part of the Together for Girls multi-sectoral partnership, this initiative supports governments in collecting and using data from the Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS) to design and implement national action plans to prevent and respond to sexual violence. Visualizations are central to advocacy and decision-making efforts, helping bridge the gap between research and policy. Link: https://www.togetherforgirls.org/en/blog/proven-data-to-prevent-sexual-violence-against-adolescent-girls

Data Source: Nationally conducted Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS), implemented in collaboration with national governments, CDC, UNICEF, and other partners. Data Type: Quantitative (survey data disaggregated by age and sex), with qualitative context added through narrative framing and survivor-informed campaigns.

Visualization Type: Infographics, story-based dashboards, heat maps, summary charts, and social media graphics. These visual tools avoid sterile or overly abstract presentations, instead using clear design, color, and narrative emphasis to create empathy and urgency. Ethical Considerations: Survivor-centered design avoids sensationalism or retraumatization. Care is taken to maintain dignity and agency of represented groups while presenting systemic patterns of harm.

The visualizations created through the Together for Girls initiative have played a transformative role in shifting how sexual violence against children and adolescents is understood and addressed. By translating complex data into emotionally resonant and accessible formats, the project has enabled a wide range of audiences — from high-level policymakers to grassroots advocates — to engage with the findings and act on them. These visuals have directly informed national action plans, helped shape legal reforms, and guided the development of school-based prevention programs. Perhaps most importantly, they have contributed to reframing sexual violence as a systemic issue demanding coordinated, compassionate, and data-informed responses, rather than as an isolated or culturally taboo problem. Through this work, the visual storytelling of data has become a key driver of both institutional accountability and public dialogue.