Ethical guidelines are crucial when carrying out research on violence against children (VAC). Such guidelines help to minimize the risk of potential harm resulting from the data collection process to participants, researchers and others, and ensure that any remaining risks are outweighed by the potential benefits. This literature review is a contribution to the foundations for the development of such ethical guidelines. It aims to capture current thinking around ethical issues and provide empirical support to guide recommendations for ethical
research practice and decision-making in collecting data on VAC. The review was prepared on behalf of the Technical
Working Group on Data Collection on Violence against Children (part of the Child Protection Monitoring and Evaluation
Reference Group). A sister project that has been carried out simultaneously to this research provides a more detailed
inventory and assessment of existing tools and methods to collect data on VAC. (from the Executive Summary).