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A - Protecting Children from Abuse and Violence

Defining abuse and violence against children

What are abuse and violence against children?

Violence against children occurs when a child experience harm, usually as the result of failure on the part of the parent or caregiver to ensure a reasonable standard of care and protection. It includes neglect or negligent treatment, harassing behavior like bullying; mental and physical abuse and injury; exploitation and sexual abuse.

• Neglect
Neglect is the deliberate denial or the persistent failure to provide the child with food, clean water, sanitation, shelter or/and care and affection.

• Mental abuse
Mental abuse occurs when a child is repeatedly frightened by threats or rejected. This may involve name calling, being put down or continual coldness from parent or caregiver to the extent that it affects the child’s physical and emotional growth.

• Physical abuse
[Physical abuse is the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child pain. It occurs when a person purposefully injures or threatens to injure a child or young person. This may take the form of slapping, shaking, kicking, burning, grabbing, etc and cause cuts, burns, bruises, or fractures, amongst others.

• Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse is any kind of sexual behavior, which is unwanted or forced. It occurs when a child or young person is used by another child, adolescent, or adult for his or her own sexual stimulation or gratification regardless of the age of majority or age of consent locally. These can be contact or non contact acts including threats and exposure to pornography.

Read more on Child sexual abuse and sexual commercial exploitation.

Violence affects children across the globe and may take place in many different settings: homes, schools, institutions (such as orphanages, residential care facilities), on the streets, in the workplace, in prisons and in places of detention. Children experience violence at home, within their family and from other children.

In schools, violence may be a regular part of a child’s experience. In many countries, corporal punishment is still permitted as part of school “discipline.” Children are subjected to caning, slapping, and whipping that result in bruises, cuts, and humiliation and in some cases serious injury or death. Girls are at particular risk of sexual violence from both teachers and male students, and may be fondled, verbally degraded, assaulted, and raped. Students may also be targeted because of their gender, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, caste, sexual orientation, social group, or other status.

Children who have been orphaned or abandoned may be placed in institutions where they are at risk of degrading treatment by staff shocking, of being restrained in food and cloth, and sometimes are exposed to deadly levels of abuse and neglect. In some facilities, mortality rates have been staggering.

Child laborers are often beaten simply as a means of intimidation or for arriving to work late, making mistakes, working too slowly, etc. Those who attempt to escape such abuse and seek protection from the police may be returned directly to their employers.

Children frequently experience violence at the hands of police and other law enforcement officials. They are often detained without sufficient cause and then subject to brutal interrogations in order to elicit confessions or information. In juvenile and criminal correctional institutions, children are frequently mistreated and abused, enduring denial of food, isolation, restraints, severe corporal punishment, torture, sexual assaults, and harassment. In many instances, children are detained with adults, leaving them at increased risk of physical and sexual abuse.

Street children are especially easy targets. They may be beaten by police who extort money from them or forced to provide sex to avoid arrest or be released from police custody. Seen as vagrants or criminals, street children have been tortured, mutilated, and subjected to death threats and extrajudicial execution.

In an emergency or crisis situation, Children are extremely vulnerable when they become part of a displaced or traumatized population. They are especially exposed to abuse and exploitation.

In armed conflict situations, children are highly vulnerable to being raped, tortured or killed. Children recruited as soldiers risk injury, disability, and death in combat. They also run the risk of physical and sexual abuse by their fellow soldiers and commanders. Children who have fled war zones are vulnerable to physical abuse, sexual violence, and cross-border attacks.]

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