CHILD ABUSE

also called Cruelty To Children, the willful and unjustifiable infliction of pain and suffering on children. The term can denote the use of inordinate physical violence; unjustifiable verbal abuse; the failure to furnish proper shelter, nourishment, medical treatment, or emotional support; incest; other cases of sexual molestation or rape; and the making of child pornography. Frequently described by the medical profession as the "battered-child syndrome," abusive treatment of children is almost universally proscribed by criminal statutes. Child abuse can have serious future consequences for the victims involved. Delays in physical growth, impaired language and cognitive abilities, and problems in personality development, learning, and behaviour are common following instances of child abuse or neglect. One of the earliest national laws to protect children from cruel treatment was adopted in Great Britain in 1884, at which time the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was organized. Similar societies were subsequently organized in other countries. In the United States, the first state to legislate protection for children was New York in 1875. The New York law served as a model for other states, all of which now have statutes designating child abuse as a criminal offense. In 1974 a National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect was established by an act of the U.S. Congress. Child abuse is a widespread though drastically underreported phenomenon. In the United States, for instance, estimates of abuse or neglect by parents or guardians range from about 1 out of every 100 children to more than 1 out of every 7. At least 500,000 children are physically abused in the United States each year; many more are emotionally abused and neglected. Incest and child sexual molestation are particularly underreported. Even though widely prevalent, child abuse is usually overlooked by family, friends, and health professionals. Prejudice, anxiety, and shame, not lack of information, seem to be the major reasons for this failure to recognize private forms of violence, a form of tacit denial that leads to their perpetuation. Cruelty to children can have many causes, but several major ones stand out. Abusive patterns of behaviour on the part of parents can be thought of as maladaptive responses to stressful situations and feelings of powerlessness. They represent adults' warped efforts to master out-of-control situations or to regain psychological equilibrium through imposing their will and powers of control on their own defenseless children. Recent psychiatric and pediatric research has found that a high proportion of parents guilty of abusive and inhumane treatment of their children were physically and mentally maltreated themselves as children. Typically overdisciplined and deprived of parental love in their infancy, these parents repeat the pattern with their own children, often in the belief that they are legitimately exercising their parental right to punish a child. With proper social and psychotherapeutic intervention, most child abusers can be helped. Many emotionally troubled abusers are relieved to be found out, and they readily respond to the therapeutic help they receive. Legal remedies for child abuse range from incarceration of the offender to the removal of the abused child from the custody of parents or others guilty of committing the crime.