Child abuse is also child mistreatment it can happen in any of the three ways; that is it can be sexual, psychological or physical. Child abuse is when a guardian, caregiver, or parent fails to act, or inflicts physical pain, death, or harms the child emotionally or attempts to hurt a child seriously. Child neglect is also a form of maltreatment or sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse. These actions can take place at school, home, or areas where the child interrelates. Child abuse is different from child maltreatment in some aspects because neglect could be through exploitation, child labour, or child trafficking and child neglect (Simon, & Arias, 2008). Every country has their thresholds that they use to classify what passes as child abuse or maltreatment; this is to help an environment where parents do not face criminal charges for disciplining their children.
Different countries, organizations or even social groups have different criteria to classify what actions pass as forms of child abuse. Many people in the sectors for protecting children have separate on the extent of ill-treatment that develops into violence. However, this affects the pace at which victims get help because the communication through the various sectors is disrupted therefore tracking the perpetrators, or assessing the environment for proof take even longer (Enny, 2011).
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Physical abuse
The deliberate use of physical force against a kid and whose result is harming the health of the child, dignity, growth, or continued existence is child abuse. These examples can be by throwing the child into a wall, hitting the child with objects, beating, burning, suffocating, lashing out or even poisoning. The people who abuse children physical always have the intention of punishing the child for a mistake they actually or other they did not take part. The abusers claim they are punishing the victims, but most of the time it goes beyond punishment. Physical abuse can also involve objects like belts, and canes (Wise, 2011).
Sexual abuse
Physical abuse in children is when an adult or an older child tries or takes advantage of a child sexually through sexual intercourse. Another form is through sexual activities like forcing a child to expose their genitals, or the perpetrator exposing their genitals to the children, using children in pornography activities, or showing them inappropriate videos or pictures. Most these events take place in their homes or environments they are familiar. The reason for this is most of the time the luring into engaging in these activities is done by people the victims know like, brothers, fathers, uncles, cousins, neighbours, stepfathers, house helps, aunties, or sisters. This form of abuse makes them vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases, physical trauma, and emotional trauma. The victims have trust issues later in life, low self-esteem, insomnia, they become suicidal, isolated and they go through difficulties like sexual dysfunction, mental illness. Statistics show that approximately 6% to 16% of men and 16% to 21% of women have gone through sexual abuse in their childhood in the United States of American alone (Conley, 2010).
Psychological abuse
This example is the form of abuse that children go through when they see their parents fighting, or one parent is going through abuse. Other times it is from parents or caregivers who yell at them, those who use abusive language when addressing others. When they do not care and emotional connection with people close to them the other forms of abuse can also be emotionally harmful to the children (Coghill, Bonnar, Duke, Graham, & Seth, 2009). This type abuse also affects the children even in their adulthood.
Neglect
Child neglect is when a guardian, caregiver or parent fails to take of the child in a proper manner by providing them with their basic needs like food, medical care, shelter, and clothing. Neglect many are through failing to protect the child from dangerous places that might interfere with their health or overall safety. Neglect can also be through denying children love, failing to connect with the emotionally by ignoring them when they need help. Many children from broken families suffer neglect because most of the time they might be with the spouse who does not want them, therefore, does not take care of them as it is necessary for their growth and development (McCoy, 2013). The examples above are examples of emotional and physical neglect, it affects the growth and development of children because most of them cannot concentrate in school, they become unhealthy, and they also fail to connect with people around them through isolation.
Abuse and neglect is a major problem in our society especially those from dysfunctional homes or children with divorced parents. This result is because they are afraid of their abusers or are not aware of avenues to air their problems.
The cases of child abuse have been all over the news for a long time now, but they are very useful in creating awareness of the problem in our society. One example of child abuse is “Pete's story” that is on the NSPCC website, the story is a boy who is giving an account of the physical and emotional abuse he went through from his mother when he was a child. He narrates how his mother used to get angry at him for small mistakes or even sometimes it was not his fault. His mother used to kick, and throw him to a wall or even down the stairs when she was angry, other times she would soak his head in water or put soap in his mouth. Pete came up with defence mechanism one of them was to hide in his room until it was unavoidable for him to go outside. Pete just like any child going through abuse has no courage to report his mother, mostly because other times she was nice to him. However, Pete was lucky he got out before it was too late (Pelzer, 2010).
Another example is the Pandora’s project online page; the story is about Kacy who is a sexual abuse survivor as she puts it. She went through sexual abuse by her grandfather, and the act went on until the time she left to go to a boarding school. She was left empty, with no will to live, low self-esteem and she was broken emotional and physically. Kacy still went through sexual abuse again when in school from a person she trusted with her problems that broke her even more. Her recovery journey started when she met a person from Pandora’s foundation and like many other victims she is still going through the process, but she is better than before.
Conclusion
Child abuse is an act that happens once, but for most victims, it is a continuous process. Most children fear their perpetrator that is why in most cases they do not report them because they are family or friends. Currently, there are measures to deal with child abusers, but we are still far from winning the fight. Many of the abusers roam free because there are no provisions to keep them in prison for long. However, we all need to work together to stop this menace. A child goes through abuse daily, yet some neighbours are aware yet they do not take any action. Let us all act come together to protect our children they are the future generation.
References
Coghill, D.; Bonnar, S.; Duke, S.; Graham, J.; Seth, S. (2009 ). Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. New York: Oxford University Press.
Conley, Amy (2010). "2. Social Development, Social Investment, and Child Welfare". In Midgley, James; Conley, Amy. Social Work and Social Development: Theories and Skills for Developmental Social Work . New York: Oxford University Press.
Enny, C. (2011). Child Abuse and Neglect: Diagnosis, treatment, and evidence . St. Louis, Mo: Saunders/Elsevier.
McCoy, M.L.; Keen, S.M. (2013). "Introduction." Child Abuse and Neglect (2 ed.). New York: Psychology Press.
Pelzer, D. J. (2010). A Child Called 'It.'
Simon, T.R.; Arias, I. ( 2008). Child Maltreatment Surveillance: Uniform Definitions for Public Health and Recommended Data Elements, Version 1.0 (PDF). Atlanta, Georgia: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.
Wise, D .(2011). " Child Abuse Assessment." In Hersen, Michel. Clinician's Handbook of Child Behavioural Assessment . London: Academic Press.
