Paper Example. Child Abuse and Neglect

Child Abuse refers to negligent action, omission, or treatment, not accidental, which deprives the child of their rights and well-being, threatening or interfering with their normal physical, psychological or social development, the authors being persons, institutions or society itself.

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Abuse is defined as the punishment or neglect inflicted on a child in a physical, sexual, or emotional way. It can be corporal (physical, sexual) or psychological (emotional, negligent). Neglect is when a child's basic emotional and psychological needs are not met by parents or providers.

The State of Massachusetts reported 82,828 cases of child abuse and neglect in 2017 (CWLA, 2019). There are various forms of mistreatment of children and adolescents exercised either by action or by omission:

Physical abuse- this form of abuse involves intentional acts that inflict pain and physical injuries to a child. In 2017, 8.8% of reported cases in Massachusetts were victims of physical abuse.

Neglect- it involves failure to attend to the basic needs of the child (nutrition, health, or hygiene) failure to comply with the responsibilities of caring and protecting them, emotional neglect (generally involving attitudinal or verbal actions that cause emotional or psychological harm in the child, such as, rejecting, ignoring, terrorizing, domestic violence, not attending to their affective and loving needs, socialization needs among others. In 2017, 93.9% of reported cases in Massachusetts were neglected (CWLA, 2019).

Sexual abuse- refers to both physical and non-physical contact behaviors. With regards to physical contact without penetration, it is worth mentioning the touching of the genitals (one of the most frequent behaviors), along with rape, prostitution, or incest of both boys and girls. A child usually suffers from sexual abuse by a person of his own life, who, knowing his fragility, threatens not to tell his parents what happened, or uses forms of rewards to satisfy his sexual desires. There are serious consequences for children who have suffered sexual abuse, as in their adult life, they may develop syndromes of fear, social exclusion, difficulty in relationships, low confidence, etc. In 2017, 3.4% of reported cases in Massachusetts were sexually abused (CWLA, 2019).

Concerning sexual abuse, it is also considered within the spectrum of mistreatment not to adequately attend to the child in the process of revealing the abuse (to show disbelief, not to protect them from the aggressor, to ignore the situation, not to attend. All these aspects are extensive to other forms of abuse. It must be taken into account that abuse can take place both in the prenatal phase, causing harm to the fetus (through, for example, toxic habits of the parents, alcoholism, drug addiction, lack of medical follow-up and even physical aggression to the fetus or the pregnant mother), as postnatal, within which the modalities described above are framed.

The various forms of child abuse and maltreatment can be inflicted by Family (when abuse is carried out by a member of the same family), Extra- family (exercised by someone outside the family), Institutional (when institutions do not guarantee adequate child care) and Social (when a set of social/contextual factors prevent the protection and care of the child are cited). In any case, abuse directly and negatively influences the correct and full development of children and causes immediate, medium, and long-term consequences.

Addressing Child Abuse

In recent months, quarantine adopted in accordance with the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO) to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus has caused an increase in cases of child abuse and maltreatment. Without schools and daycare centers running, children and teenagers who used to spend the day away from home today are isolated. The removal of children and adolescents from school during isolation broke the main channel of complaints used by them to report violence: the teacher.

Data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says that more than 70% of child abuse cases happen inside the residence (Runyan et al., 2018). The teacher is an adult who can perceive this type of situation, either by a physical mark, by a change in behavior, or even by a complaint from the child. Without him, today, these victims are unable to meet someone outside their family environment. Also, there is an even greater difficulty in reporting together with the isolation since it creates a much more unprotected environment for the child. In this sense, not every victim of violence makes the complaint, often out of fear.

Education and reporting channels of abuse cases can help in preventing further escalation and protect the children from the negative consequences. The State government can leverage technology, for example, by creating a website for learning, support, and monitoring so that students can have psychological assistance at a distance during the quarantine. Such a portal can be interactive, enabling the children to access, free of charge, information, and even talk to psychologists and psychopedagogues from different schools in the city. Depending on the conversation with the specialists, the student may even be directed to other areas and also make complaints.

References

Child Welfare League of America (2019). Massachusetts’ Children at a Glance. https://www.cwla.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Massachusetts-2019.pdf

Runyan, D. K., Schwab-Reese, L., & Shankar, V. (2018). Is the US national decline in child physical abuse attributable to the decline in intimate partner violence and births to adolescent mothers?. International journal on child maltreatment: research, policy and practice, 1(1), 41-49.