New research suggests that orphaned children in low- and middle-income countries have a high risk of trauma and are just as likely to experience abuse as girls.

Researchers at Duke University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill found that physical and sexual abuse is by far some of the most prevalent traumatic events orphaned boys. This kind of abuse affects 12 percent of girls and 14 percent of boys in institution-based care, and 19 percent of girls and 20 percent of boys in family-based care annually.

Upon these findings, researchers suggest targeting more support services and prevention programs toward protecting vulnerable boys.

"So much of our funding for children in adversity focuses on girls," Kathryn Whetten, director of the Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research at the Duke Global Health Institute, said in a statement. "This study demonstrates the critical need to invest in support services for boys, too -- not only for their own protection, but to help prevent them from becoming abusers themselves. And this, in turn, helps further protect girls in the long run."

For the study, researchers examined self-reported prevalence and incidence of assault or other forms of traumatic event types, including physical and sexual abuse, among more than 2,000 children.

Despite the similarities in abuse instances across gender, international funding mechanisms -- such as the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the United Nations task force on protection from sexual exploitation and abuse - usually place a special emphasis on protecting girls while neglecting to address the need to protect orphaned boys from abuse.

The findings are detailed in the April edition of Global Mental Health.