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Addressing violence against children and adolescents is part of UNICEF’s core mission to protect the health and well-being of children and adolescents, grounded in gender equality programming priorities articulated in the 2018–2021 Gender Action Plan and the 2018–2021 Strategic Plan, particularly Goal Area 3: Every child is protected from violence and exploitation. As UNICEF prepares a new Child Protection Strategy and Gender Policy to accompany the next organization-wide Strategic Plan, this paper examines how and why UNICEF and international partners should pay greater attention to gender dimensions of violence against children and adolescents (VAC/A), including drivers of violence and opportunities for more effective violence prevention and response. This paper also explores the rationale for greater attention to links among different forms of violence across the lifespan, including ways in which violence against adult women, particularly intimate partner violence (IPV) affects children’s and adolescents’ health, wellbeing and risk of violence, and the implications of those intersections for UNICEF’s violence prevention and response programming.