Child Abuse - Research Paper Example

Child Abuse Manmeet sidhu Academia-Research.com Child abuse refers to the intended, unintended and perceived maltreatment of the child, whether habitual or not. It may include physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional/psychological abuse and child neglect. Children in effect develop behaviors that may fall flat in the broad spectrum such as anti-social and self destructive tendencies. Also, while trying to cope with the thoughts of the abuse, their conditioning in the environment and for the environment becomes maladaptive and leads to acquisition of many health and psychological problems. They become overly mature and have constant experiential restraint on them. It’s an underreported crime, usually due to family contingencies involved. Introduction Child abuse- A term that is associated with dire pain and agony for the child. It’s not just a harm that is inflicted on the individual or the familial basis, but if we go and look out of our “little world” scenario, we find that it’s a larger problem with a larger consequence base. Children who grow up having such experiences, in turn are more likely to inflict abuse on their own children. This becomes a vicious circle, which lingers on and on. It not just has its effect in the immediate family; it explodes and infects the society altogether with crime, drugs, disease and callousness. It’s a state of emotional, economic and sexual maltreatment meted out to a person below the age of eighteen and is globally prevalent phenomenon. According to WHO :” child abuse or maltreatment constitutes all forms of physical and/or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, survival, development or dignity in the context of a relationship of responsibility, trust or power” (World Health Organization, 1999). Types of child abuse Different connotations may be attached with “child abuse” in different cultures and socio-economic background. There are majorly 4 types of child abuse inflicted upon children. The WHO defines them as: 1. Physical abuse – physical abuse is inflicting of physical injury upon the child. This may include burning, hitting, punching, shaking, kicking, beating or otherwise harming a child. The parent or the caretaker may not have intended to hurt the child. It may, be the result of over-discipline or physical punishment that is inappropriate to the child’s age. 2. Sexual abuse – sexual abuse is inappropriate sexual behavior with the child. It includes fondling a child’s genitals, making the child fondle with adult’s genitals, intercourse, incest, rape, sodomy, exhibitionism and sexual exploitation. To be considered ‘child abuse’, these acts may be committed by a person responsible for the care of the child (for example a baby sitter, a parent or a daycare provider), or related to the child. If a stranger commits these acts, it would be considered sexual assault and handled solely by the police and criminal courts. 3. Emotional abuse – emotional abuse is also known as verbal abuse, mental abuse, and psychological maltreatment. It includes acts or the failures to act by parents or caretakers that have caused or could cause, serious behavioral, cognitive, emotional, or mental trauma. This can include parents/caretakers using extreme and/or bizarre forms of punishment, such as confinement in a closet or a dark room or being tied to a chair for long periods of time or threatening or terrorizing a child. Less severe acts, but no less damaging, are belittling or rejecting treatment, using derogatory terms to describe the child, habitual tendency to blame the child or make him/her a scapegoat. 4. Neglect – it is a failure to provide for the child’s basic needs. Neglect can be physical, educational or emotional. Physical neglect can include not providing adequate food or clothing, appropriate medical care, supervision, or proper weather protection (heat or cold). It may include abandonment. Educational neglect includes failure to provide appropriate schooling or special education needs, allowing excessive truancies. Psychological neglect includes the lack of any emotional support and love, never attending to the child, substance abuse including allowing the child to participate in drug and alcohol abuse. Effects on the child’s psyche The effect child abuse has on the psyche of the children is immense. It inflicts them with serious emotional harm while trying to combat the constant thoughts that they possibly could have controlled the situation. In turn, to minimize the emotional pain they use defense mechanisms like blaming themselves. For the immature mind, it is actually much more debilitating and perplexing because the harm is inflicted by the family itself. Also, the child and the perpetrator interact very frequently. Therefore, it becomes difficult for the child to understand the complexity of the situation and thus give in easily. Due to which, the child can also develop range of maladaptive behaviors which can become pathological problems at a later stage. These may take the shape of post traumatic stress disorders, personality disorders, generalized anxiety disorder, schizophrenia and so on. The children’s perplexed mind gets confused as to what is right and hence gives in to “hide the family secret”. This can lead to total halt in the child’s life due to its inability to make long term relationships which undoubtedly has long term repercussions. This seeps in through the faulty learning the child gets from the “role models” and finds it hard to suffice in the social world. It puts an enormous amount of experiential restraint on the child’s psyche he becomes wary to practice something new because of the fear that it may lead to some harm. This seriously affects the capacity to think creatively and find out novel methods to deal with the situation. Hence, the child will remain intellectually average. Also, it puts a lot of physical stress on the child. The overexposure of pain over and over again makes the mind susceptible to such experiences and adjusts according to it. This may lead to possible physical truancies such generally being emotionally numb, self-injury, difficulties in attention, immune suppression and so on. Child abuse – an underreported crime Child abuse is an underestimated crime chiefly because of under-recognition, under-reporting, and lack of one comprehensive definition of what constitutes abuse (American medical association, 2007). The victims don’t come out with the truth regarding the abuse because of the fear of reprisal and much more complicated emotional issues to handle, such as the family contingencies involved in the process. Possible slipping is due to petite enforcement of the mandatory reporting laws. People don’t think that reporting will do any good to them. Also, the government also neglects the child welfare agencies. Hence, it a process where in cooperation is required from all bounds and if not there can lead to an absolute breakdown. Literature review A study was done on child physical and sexual abuse to have a comprehensive look at the alcohol consumption patterns, consequences and dependence from the national alcohol survey by Anne Lown E, Nayak MB, Korcha RA, and Greenfield TK, in 2010. It was found that both child physical and sexual abuse were associated with many alcohol outcomes in adult women, even when controlling for parental alcohol problems. The study results point to the need to screen for and treat underlying issues related to child abuse, particularly in an alcohol treatment setting. Another study was done on the attitudes and child abuse reporting behaviors in Hong Kong by Leung PW, Wong WC, Tang CS, Lee A, in 2010. It showed low reporting behavior. The major barriers to report were identified and can only be addressed by education and a carefully designed support system. Another study was to analyze the cultural issues in disclosure of child sexual abuse by Fontes LA and Plummer C in 2010. It was found that Cultural norms affect the likelihood that child sexual abuse will be discovered by an adult or disclosed by a child. Cultural norms also affect whether abused childrens families will report child sexual abuse to authorities. Methods Secondary method was used for the aforementioned information. Such as books, journals, websites etc. Also, the people involved in the study and prevention agencies for child abuse were interviewed. Findings It is well correlated by the aforementioned information that child abuse is a very intricate and a complex process to study. It involves minute nuances which may not be important to the naked eye but holds a large amount of significance when we tread deep under. Also, the effects that is has on the child are enormous and can burst out in heavy proportions and affect the society at large. We also came to know, that the crime is underreported because it involves outsized amount of interconnected minutiae. Discussion Child abuse is a state of emotional, economic and sexual maltreatment meted out to a person below the age of eighteen and is globally prevalent phenomenon. According to WHO : “child abuse or maltreatment constitutes all forms of physical and/or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, survival, development or dignity in the context of a relationship of responsibility, trust or power” (World Health Organization, 1999). Child abuse is of four types - Physical abuse, Sexual abuse, Emotional abuse and Neglect. Each has a debilitating effect on the child’s psyche and reproaches out in dire consequences for the whole life of the child. He/she may not be able to establish long term relationships and build trust on significant others. There may be a possible breakdown in the child’s intellectual capacity and therefore may lead to academic insufficiency which may further inflict more harm than usual. Also, the child’s fear to practice new things may mar the novelty and seriously affect the capacity to decipher new methods to cope with situations. It may also be possible that convergent thinking becomes the only way through which the child processes the information. When we analyze the larger perspective, we come to see the invincible truth that these children are at a higher risk of psychological breakdowns and which may take the shape of pathological disorders in the near future such as post traumatic stress disorder, personality disorders and the like. We also came to know that child abuse is an underreported crime because of the familial contingencies involved. Also, there is very less amount of information with people pertaining to the issue and also if information is there, they do not exercise it because of the fear or revenge or relapse. Also, an important point worth considering here is the support from the government is very less to help uproot this from the deepest pit holes. Proper consideration of the laws, proper definition of child abuse and knowledge about the consequences can lead to an improvement in the larger scenario that faces us in the eye. Conclusion Child abuse is a very difficult crime to be handled by the child’s psyche. It has dire effects on the child and is an underreported issue. References 1. Newton, C.J (2001). Child Abuse – An Overview. Findcounselling.com Mental Health Journal (online): http://www.findcounseling.com/journal/child-abuse.html 2. World Health Organization (1999): Report of the Consultation on Child Abuse Prevention; Geneva, http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/neglect/en/ 3. Anne Lown E, Nayak MB, Korcha RA, and Greenfield TK (2010). Child Physical and Sexual Abuse – A Comprehensive Look at the Alcohol Consumption Patterns, Consequences and Dependence. National Alcohol Survey (Online): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ 4. Kacker, L, Varadan, S, Kumar, P (2007). Study Of Child Abuse – INDIA 2007. Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India (online). http://wcd.nic.in/childabuse.pdf Read More