Causes and Control of Child Abuse - Essay Example

Running Headers: CHILD ABUSE Name: Course: Institution: Instructor: Date: May 13, 2010 Introduction. Child abuse is the physical, psychological or emotional mistreatment of children. For many years, children have been abused in various distinct ways, such as physical, emotional, neglect, sexual, medical neglect, human trafficking, bonded labour and many more. Abuse can occur to anyone but children are mostly abused compared to any other age group. It is easier to abuse children because they are ignorance of their rights, and it’s very rare for them to take action by facing the law. According to the Child help Organization, child abuse normally occurs after every ten seconds and as a result, about five children don’t survive this abuse. Three out of four children are under the age of fourteen. It is also approximated that from 60% to 85% of child fatalities are caused by maltreatment. About 90% of child sexual abuse victims understand the perpetrator in some way, whereby 68% are being abused by their family members. According to the International Child Abuse Network, in 1999, there were about 3,244,000 children who were abused and reported to the Child Protective Services (CPS). For instance, in United States, there are approximate 900,000 children who are abused, and from them, 1,500 don’t survive (Hoven, 2010). It is a fact that the cases of child abuse usually increase day by day around the global. As a result, there’s a need to address the issues in order to protect innocent children around the globe. There are many governments and non-government organizations which have been in frontline to prevent or demoralize child abuse. These organizations have come up with strong policies and measures that protect children from any type of abuse. Currently, each and every country contain laws that protect children against abuse; due to overwhelming cases of child abuse, many countries have amended some of the Acts in order to reinforce the law against child abuse. Protection of child abuse must include many stakeholders not only the governments and non-governmental organizations. Parents or guardians and society in general should also play a role. They need to teach the children to be responsible and avoid association with persons who may have wicked intentions to abuse or molest them. They must create awareness by explaining to the children that no one has the right to hurt them or touch them in private parts, or touch them in a manner that they will feel uncomfortable. Children should be instructed to avoid strangers who trie to touch them in private parts or move away quickly from them. They should also report such incidents immediately to a parent, teacher or the guardian. The theoretical pathway from child abuse to emerging adult substance misuse is shown in the diagram below: Link 1: Child abuse and bully victimisation. Some parents are always very hostile to their children, they mock their children and as a result the children become low-esteem and tries to avoid the psychological pain and anxiety, this may force the child to isolate himself or herself from social interactions with the other siblings According to Rigby (2001), social interaction is very important for normal cognitive development, when a child is abused, he or she becomes cognitive immature and may also become a slow learner. Moreover, the stresses that are linked with abuse may have a negative impact to cortisol levels, where they might turn out to be abnormally low, thereby stimulating passivity which regularly symbolizes children that are abused. All of these symptoms shows that abused children are distinct from other children, simply because they normally isolate themselves from others as they have poor social skills and a fearful demeanour that symbolize these children as vulnerable. Abused children are also often short in size, especially if they were neglected, through improper feeding and hard work during the age of 3 to 12. In addition, these become under-nourished, as the abusers are particularly attracted to small age children, since they are easy targets. When abused child is bullied, he/she doesn’t react but he/she starts crying or giving in, thereby encouraging the bullies to prolong with their duties. On other hand, when the fellow colleagues of abused child observed bullying actions, they start favouring the bully and isolate the abused child socially, hence resulting to a low self-esteem, which might disseminate the vicious cycle. An experimental confirmation that supports this theoretical justification for the correlation of subsequent bullying at school and child abuse: for example, Rigby, (2002) associated the correlation betwixt parental maltreatment and bullying at school to attachment theory. He identified parental factors like the use of corporal punishment and lack of warmth, or failure to monitor children’s activities. Kochenderfer and Ladd (1996), collected a data in the United States during summer day camp from 169 abused children and 98 who were not abused, and they found that abused children have higher chances of being bullied when compared to others who are not abused. However, they also found that abused children are more likely to become bullies themselves than non-abused children. This is an indication that the child behaviours are being determined by the manner he/she grew. The environmental factors can also determine the final product; this simply means that if a child grew in an environment where bullying activities and other type of abuses occurs, then he/she might end up been abuser or bully. Bullying and victimisation is linked with frequently persistent and rigorous behaviour and emotional problems. Bullying and victimization occurs from the age of 8 to 16. A statistic from Child Depression Inventory shows that approximate 15% of boys and 7% of girls are bullied and 13% of boys and 12% of girls are victimized at the age of 16. Both victimization and bullying at age 16 are linked with a broad range of psychological setbacks at the age between 8 and 16, and with reference to child mental health services. Child isolation is the failure to provide physical, emotional or financial support to the child and include inappropriate clothing, being underweight or malnourished and being left alone or taking care of younger ones and many more. Many teens are isolated by their parent through the denial of love they necessitate. When a teen suffers from psychological disturbance and bullying, they become stressed and become inactive especially in class. This may affect a child’s adulthood as well. When a child lacks education, there are high possibilities of his/her life being doomed. Moreover, in adolescence stage, there are a lot of developments that occur in teens, and if they are psychologically affected, they might not grow appropriately. Many media have reported cases where bullied children are relentlessly injured or commit suicide after they are victimized by bullies. Some of the recent research indicates that bullied children manifest adjustment problems, such as internalized disorders, social difficulties, externalized disorders, suicide ideation, and physical health problems. Bullied children manifest symptoms of emotional problems, depression, poor social skills and low self-regard (Forero et al 1999). In order to prevent assault and victimization, a survey conducted on children who have been maltreated by bullies betwixt the age of five and seven years indicated behavioral and school maladjustment at the moment of result for this investigation, seven years of age. This was carried out by using measures of pro-social behavior, internalizing problems, happiness at school, externalizing problems, and academic performance, that were obtained when children were at the age of seven. The outcome ended with additional verification, from a hefty representative trial of adolescent children that clean victims and bully/victims apparent psychosocial difficulties. Second, they asked if children who were victimized by bullies betwixt the ages of five and seven years had already revealed behavioral and school maladjustment at school admission. Measures of pro-social behavior, internalizing problems, happiness at school, and externalizing problems were also evaluated when the children embarked on school, at the age of five. Understanding the characteristics of children who afterward become clean sufferers of bullies can assist guide prevention strategies. The third question they asked if being mistreated by bullies exclusively stimulated to victims’ and bully/victims’ school adjustment and behavioral problems, considering the preexisting adjustment predicaments. If being persecuted by bullies can result to or aggravates adjustment predicaments in adolescent, after considering the bewildering effect of preceding difficulties, this study sails in the same boat with intervention programs that endeavor to demoralize bullying behavior and decrease the damage that is caused by bullying (Kochenderfer, & Ladd, 1996). In some cases, teens isolate themselves substance abuse. At present, many teens are involving themselves with drug abuse, such as cocaine, heroine, marijuana, alcohol and many more. When the teens become drug addicted, their psychological traits start to change, and they isolated themselves from their parents or society in order to stay in a place where they aren’t monitored. The impacts of drugs to teens are uncountable when compared to adults. When a teen starts misusing drugs, it automatically affect his/her next stage of development in life. Adult drug addicts in the society should be avoided to prevent them from influencing children. In summary, while there has been a lot of research linking child abuse to subsequent substance misuses, Berk (2010) claims that, there has been little research into the dynamics of the process. The above evidence shows that if the consequences of child abuse are not addressed in time, this can lead to negative developmental outcomes at later periods of the child’s life which may ultimately lead to substance misuse and abuse. Over years, children have been abused in different ways. Some of these abuses are; physical, emotional, neglect, sexual, medical neglect, human trafficking, bonded labour and many more. Many children have ended up loosing their lives as result of these abuses, while others have being left injured or in a state of disability. There are many people who wonder how people abuses innocent children, but actually human beings were born distinct. There are types of human being without the nine fruits of Holy Spirit, such as mercy, love, kindness, peace, goodness, and others. These are the people who abuses innocent children. Abusers can harm or abuse a child in any way no matter the connection between him and the child. For, example, in a recent incident occurred in Kenya last month, a father was abusing his three children, where the first one was eight years old, second child five tears old and the last born two years. The abuser was threatening the children that if they report the incident to their mother, then he will terminate supporting them. Actually, this type of abuse is hard to be prevented since parents are trusted with their children. However, when such a case is recognized, then a strong sentence should be applied, like life imprisonment or death sentence, in order to be a lesson to others who have a similar intention. This is unbelievable case, but it normally happens each an every day around the global (Egan and Perry, 1998). However, there are some abusers who are mentally challenged. This type of abusers normally abuses the children without knowing. As a result, a mentally challenged person should be monitored in order to avoid him doing things ironically. For non-mentally challenged people, severe measures have to be taken, so that we are able to demoralize or dissolve the cases of children. Also, government needs to reinforce or enact laws that fully protect the children against any form of abuse. Civic education or counselling should also be provided to children in order to prevent them against abuse (Crick, & Grotpeter, 1995). Most of the children are being abused due to ignorance, but when awareness is created, naivety is removed, and it will be hard for them to be cheated. Civic education and counselling may include educating them on negative effects of using drugs, not to engage with strangers, avoid travelling at night alone and many more. My credits goes to agencies and non-governmental organization who have being in frontline in fighting against child abuse. Organization such as UNICEF, Commonwealth, and many more have assisted to fight against child abuse by coming out with polices that protect children. There are some organizations that have built home for abused children, where they reside and attend school. Some of the abused children are orphans, yet their guardians abuse them. This is why these organizations established homes for them. When comes to adolesces, they are also being bullied and victimized by abusers. Bullying and victimisation are linked with frequently persistent and with rigorous behaviour and emotional problems. They usually occur to children starting at the age of 8 to 16. The outcomes of bullying are extremely dangerous as adult can commit suicide, get injuries and many more (Sourander ,et al2000). In conclusion, this paper has shown that substance misuse is the outcome of a sequence of events that have occurred at different earlier points in the misuser’s life, each of which has had a negative psychological consequence which could have been prevented or ameliorated if appropriate interventions had been in place. Child abuse can lead to substance misuse, but there are also many opportunities throughout the child’s life to overcome or reduce its harmful effects. As a result, severe measures have to be enacted in order to demoralize or conclude child abuse. The government must support the stakeholders concerned with protecting child rights and terminate the child abuse. Also, the government is accountable of ensuring that no drugs enter the country: the corrupt leaders who allow the drugs to enter the country must be prosecuted in the court of law in order to create a free drugs abuse country. These will ensure that no teens have an access to drugs, hence reducing child abuse. Parent and teachers must monitor the children in order to identify any symptoms of child abuse. References Andre Sourander, et al,(2000). Child Abuse & Neglect, Volume 24, Issue 7. Pages 873-881. ChildAbuse.com, Prevention through Education and Awareness, Retrieved 2010, from (Accessed May 14, 2010). Crick, N.R. & Grotpeter, J.K. (1995) Relational aggression, gender and social psychological adjustment. Child Development, 66, 710-722. Egan, S. K.; Perry, D. G. (1998) Does low self-regard invite victimization? Developmental-Psychology Vol34 (2): 299-309. Forero, R. et al (1999). Bullying behaviour and psychosocial health among school students in NSW, Australia. British Medical Journal. 319: 344-348. Joanna S. et al(2009) Child Abuse and Neglect, Retrieved December 2009, From http://www.helpguide.org/mental/child_abuse_physical_emotional_sexual_neglect.htm (Accessed May 14, 2010). Kochenderfer, B.J. & Ladd, G.W. (1996). Peer Victimization: Cause or Consequence of School Maladjustment. Child Development, 67, 1305-1317 Kumpulainen, K et al,(1998) Bullying and psychiatric symptoms among elementary school-age children Child Abuse and Neglect, 22 (7) 705-7. 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