Young people’s bodily integrity and freedom from violence: evidence from the GAGE Jordan endline

Young people’s right to bodily integrity and freedom from violence is core to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This is manifested in two Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Goal 16 and Goal 5 (United Nations (UN), 2025). SDG 16, Peace and Justice, aims to eradicate all forms of violence and abuse against children, reduce overall violence, and uphold the rule of law. SDG 5, Gender Equality, seeks to eliminate child marriage (under age 18) and all types of violence against women and girls. Jordan has committed to achieving these goals and, in 2022, passed a Child Rights Bill (End Violence Against Children, 2023) and, in 2025, launched a National Action Plan for the Prevention and Response to Child Protection Issues, Gender-based Violence, and Family Violence (End Violence Against Children, 2024). Despite its strong policy frameworks, Jordan is currently not on track to deliver on violence-related SDGs (Sachs et al., 2024). In fact, research indicates that young people in Jordan continue to face significant risks of violence from caregivers, educators and peers, with girls and young women also vulnerable to child marriage (under age 18) and abuse by their husband and in-laws (United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and National Council for Family Affairs (NCFA), 2021; NCFA et al., 2022; Department of Statistics (DoS) and ICF, 2024; Presler-Marshall et al., 2025a).

Suggested citation

Presler-Marshall, E., Luckenbill, S., Jones, N., Alheiwidi, S., Baird, S., Leung, S., … and Shareef, Q. (2025) Young people’s bodily integrity and freedom from violence: evidence from the GAGE Jordan endline. Report. London: Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (https://gage.odi.org/young-people-s-bodily-integrity-and-freedom-from-violence-evidence-from-the-gage-jordan-endline/)