CHILD ABUSE

noun (People and Society) Maltreatment of a child, especially by physical violence or sexual interference. Etymology: Formed by compounding. The specialized sense of abuse here had already been in use for some time before the (sexual) abuse of children came to public attention during the eighties, and is common in other combinations: see abuse. History and Usage: Child abuse was first used as a term in the early seventies, but mostly to refer to crimes of physical violence ('baby battering') or neglect. During the eighties (and particularly as a result of the public enquiry into the large numbers of children diagnosed as sexually abused in Cleveland, NE England, in 1987) it became clear that the sexual abuse of children, often by a parent or other family member, was much more widespread than had previously been thought, and a great deal was both written and spoken on the subject. Since then, the term child abuse has been used especially to refer to sexual interference with a child, and seems to have taken over from the older term child molesting. In 1990 the subject gained widespread publicity once again in the UK as police investigated the suspected abuse of children by adults involved in satanic rituals (known as ritual abuse or satanic abuse as well as child abuse). Child abuse occurs in all walks of life...Doctors and lawyers, too, batter their kids. New York Times 6 Jan. 1974, p. 54 Grave disquiet was expressed...about the conclusions drawn from diagnostic sessions held at the Great Ormond Street Hospital child abuse clinic in those cases where there was doubt whether a child had been sexually abused. The Times 16 July 1986, p. 36