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Advocacy tool

Fact sheet: Governance and accountability

Governance and accountability

About this fact sheet

This fact sheet is one of the Out of the Shadows Index advocacy tools. It explains what the Governance and accountability pillar tracks, what the scores mean, and how to use the findings in your advocacy. 

It is designed for civil society organizations (CSOs), survivor advocates, youth advocates, and anyone engaging with policymakers or the government on policies, programs, and services related to sexual violence against children and adolescents.

Download this Governance pillar fact sheet

Learn about what this pillar measures and how to interpret the scores

Humanizing governance

This vignette spans the entire Governance and accountability theme and allows you to humanize what good governance means for the lives of children and adolescents. Use it when you want to tell the full story of what happens when the systems fail and what it looks like when they work, in a way that does not require any personal disclosure.

WHAT IS

A 12-year-old tells a teacher that someone has hurt them. The teacher wants to help but has nowhere to turn — there is no protocol pinned to the staff room wall, no number to call, no step-by-step guide for what happens next.

The family takes the child to a police station, where an officer says this is a matter for social services. Social services sends them to a clinic. The clinic says they need a referral. Each office asks the child to explain what happened again. No one is in charge. No one follows up.

Weeks pass. The child stops sleeping. The family tries again — but every door they knock on leads to another door. No one can tell them what services should exist, because there is no plan. No one has set aside money to protect a child or adolescent who has experienced violence. No one with lived experience of childhood sexual violence has been asked what a response should look like through a National Survivor Council. No child has ever been invited to say what safety means to them.

The government has signed international commitments to protect children and adolescents from sexual violence. But those signatures have not reached their lives.

WHAT COULD BE

A 12-year-old tells a teacher that someone has hurt them. The teacher knows exactly what to do — a National Action Plan has led to the development of a clear referral pathway, and every school has it posted. One phone call activates a coordinated response. A social worker meets the family that same day and explains every step. The child tells their story once. A caseworker stays with them through the process.

The child does not know it, but behind that response is a system that was built to find them. The government turned its international commitments into domestic law. A funded, time-bound action plan names which ministry does what, by when, and with what budget. People with lived experience shared their expertise through a National Survivors Council, shaping how the system listens and responds. Children have formal ways to say what protection should look like.

Because the government collects regular data on sexual violence against children and adolescents — including online — it can see where children are falling through the gaps, and act before more are harmed. This child is protected by design.

Bridge to action

This is the gap the Index helps us close. Each step in this journey maps to a Governance and Accountability indicator: international commitments (1.1), specific and funded National Action Plans (1.2), survivor expertise harnessed through National Survivor Councils (1.3.1), child participation (1.3.2), budgetary commitment (non-scoring) and transparency (1.4), and data systems that make children and victims and survivors visible to the state (1.5). [Country] scores [X] across these indicators. We are asking [government/ministry] to [specific action] by [year] — so that no child or adolescent is left to navigate harm in a system that was not prepared for them.

How to use this in your advocacy

In a meeting with government

Share the country’s Governance and accountability score and use it to anchor your ‘ask’. For example: “Your country scored [X] for having a government-supported National Survivor Council. This means there is no existing formal mechanism for the expertise of people with lived experienced of sexual violence against children to to inform child protection and/or violence prevention policymaking. We ask you to commit to establishing a National Survivor Council in [timeframe] and ensure it is fully functional by [timeframe] and we are eager to lend our expertise throughout the process.”

In a campaign or public statement

Lead with a human-centered framing: “Right now a child facing online sexual violence in [country] cannot rely on the system to protect them in a consistent, coordinated way. There is no National Action Plan to address online sexual violence against children and adolescents, so prevention and response are left fragmented, under-prioritized, or dependent on individual actors rather than on a clear government strategy. The Out of the Shadows Index shows that healing services are falling short. We’re calling on [government] to act.”

At a budget advocacy moment

Pair the Governance and accountability score with a costed proposal: “Investing [amount] in [specific action] would address [specific gap identified by the Index]. Here is the evidence and here is the ‘ask’.”

Where to go next

This fact sheet gives you the evidence. The other toolkit components help you turn evidence into action:

ComponentWhat it does
Meeting toolkit10-minute meeting script, 2-minute intervention, accountability questions
Email templatesReady-to-adapt outreach and follow-up emails
Governance pillar — Finance advocacyInvestment arguments, budget line mapping, submission template

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