Background Violence against children (VAC) prevention is the priority of public health; and to master the prevalence state and risk factors of VAC is the base to develop the prevention strategies. This study aimed to obtain the prevalence features and to find the risk factors of VAC in China, and provide basis and formulate the prevention strategies.

Methods The death data of VAC was from The National disease surveillance points system (DSP) during 2006–2012. There were 161 surveillance points in DSP distributed in all the 31 provinces in China. The total population in this system was more than 73 million. We analysed the data from DSP about children aged 0–17 died from violence (ICD-10: V01-Y89). The VAC hospital information was from The National Injury Surveillance System (NISS) during 2006–2013. This system included 126 hospitals from 43 surveillance points. We analysed the data from NISS about children aged 0–17 caused by VAC with the parameter of “intentional” injury.

Results The trend of death caused by VAC had declined overall; it was reduced to 0.52/100,000 in 2012 from 0.85/100,000 in 2006. The male VAC mortality was higher than female, and the rural was higher than urban. Blunt injury was the leading maltreatment injury (63.35%), followed by sharp injury (11.09%). The main violence occurrence place against infant was home. Home and public residential institution were the main VAC occurrence places for 1-4 years old children, and school was the main place of violence against the children over 5 years old.

Conclusions The declining death rate of VAC may be related to the social benign development. The related child protection laws and regulations should be implemented further and the prevention programs targeting the domestic violence and the school violence should be prioritised.