Out of the Shadows Index and Advocacy Grants

In 2018, the Oak Foundation, World Childhood Foundation, and Carlson Family Foundation commissioned Economist Impact (formerly the Economist Intelligence Unit) to develop a country level benchmarking exercise on child sexual abuse. Building on this initial work, Oak Foundation asked Ignite Philanthropy to incubate and advance the Out of the Shadows (OOS) Index across two editions published  in 2019 and 2022. 

The Index is in fact the first global benchmark looking at how governments, the private sector, and civil society are addressing child sexual exploitation and abuse. It covers 60 countries that represent approximately 85% of the global child population.

To complement the Index, we launched the Out of the Shadows Advocacy Grants to strengthen civil society’s advocacy efforts, driving policy change and systemic reform. Between 2019 and 2024, we supported 37 civil society organisations in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America, strengthening frontline actors’ ability to use data for systemic change in ending child sexual abuse.

Ongoing Impacts

The greatest value of the Index and advocacy grants lies in how they have supported national actors to advance dialogue, raise public and policymaker awareness, strengthen evidence-based monitoring, and drive policy and legal reforms. These changes mark important steps forward in areas where such momentum had previously been limited.

By the end of 2024, we completed the Index’s planned incubation phase and transferred the ‘action leadership’ role to Together for Girls, who continues to unlock the full potential of the Index as a global benchmark guiding collective efforts to end child sexual violence.