Understanding abuse
1. Prevalence
Child abuse remains prevalent, even today. The question remains: how prevalent? The social stigma around child abuse means that it gets swept under the carpet time and again. We know how many cases of abuse are being reported and how many cases are substantiated each year. However, it is impossible to know how many children are being abused every day but are too afraid to say anything.
In response to the growing awareness around child abuse, several laws have been set in place to protect children from further abuse. In every state in Australia mandatory reporting laws have been introduced (Higgins, Bromfield, & Richardson, 2007). These laws mandate that professionals who work with children are legally obliged to make a report about any child they suspect is in danger of abuse. These laws differ state-by-state, but are in place Australia-wide in some form. In spite of mandatory reporting laws, statistics suggest that child abuse remains prevalent.
In 2006-7, a total of 309,517 suspected cases of child abuse and neglect were reported. A total of 58,563 of these cases were substantiated (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2008). The report found that girls were about three times more likely to be the subject of a substantiated sexual abuse claim than boys, but boys were generally more likely to be the subject of a substantiated claim of physical abuse than girls. In addition, the rates of substantiated abuse or neglect decreased as age increased (Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2008).
The prevalence of child abuse is flagged by many other indicators. One of these is the numbers of calls to the Kid’s Help Line. Kid’s Help Line is a free, confidential and anonymous 24 hour counselling service for children and young people aged 5-25. Of calls made to the Kid’s Help Line, “Worry about a family member” was the most common reason for the call. Five % of calls were about child abuse or neglect (Kid’s Help Line, 2006).
A study by Draper et al. (2007) found that of 21,000 people over the age of 60 from 5 Australian states, 6.7% reported having been physically abused, 6.5% sexually, 10% reported either and 3% both (Draper et al., 2007). Research on a sample of randomly selected Australian women revealed that 20% of participants had experienced childhood sexual abuse (Fleming, 1997). Of those women, 71% were aged less than 12 years at the time of their abuse and only 10% of cases were ever reported. Andrews, Gould and Corry (2002) reported on the overall findings of seven studies and found that 5.1% of males and 27.5% of females had experienced some level of child sexual abuse.
Statistics suggest that child abuse is on the rise, but reporting may have increased rather than there being an actual increase in incidence. Perhaps adults are simply more aware of the warning signs of abuse now than ever before
2. The Common Story
Andrews et al. (2002), who reported on the overall findings of seven studies, found that the onset of sexual abuse occurred at a mean age of 10. In 75% of cases the offender was known to the child, and in 40% of cases a family member was the offender.
A study by Palmer, Brown, Rae-Grant, & Loughin (2001) with 384 survivors of childhood abuse identified that most survivors reported a combination of abuse types: physical, emotional and sexual (45%); physical and emotional (21%); sexual and emotional (17%); sexual only (11%) and emotional only (6%). Survivors who could recall the age of onset of the abuse had been very young (between 4 and 6). The reported perpetrator were biological fathers (34%), biological mothers (19%), stepfathers, adoptive fathers and foster fathers (8%); stepmothers, adoptive mothers and foster mothers (5%); both parents equally (7%); other relative (14%); and siblings (10%).
A study by van Loon & Kralik (2005a) with female survivors of child sexual abuse found that the life of child sexual abuse survivors is often interwoven with emotional abuse and physical violence. Many participants in this study experienced assaults within their childhood families. These were usually not isolated events, but rather were sustained patterns of behaviour, endured over many years. Most women recalled their earliest memories of sexual abuse between the ages of 5 and 8 years. Participants’ backgrounds varied across rural, remote and metropolitan settings and all social strata were represented, including professional, paraprofessional and working class families. There was an over-representation of perpetrators who were in positions of legally sanctioned authority. The participants in this study reported compounding social issues within the childhood family that included fragmentation of the family through divorce, family violence, alcohol and drug addictions, and mental illness. In most cases the family presented to the outside world as “normal”. Family relationships were characterised by intimidation, fear, shame, blame, secrecy and isolation, to avoid exposing the family to scrutiny. The victims were silenced by fear of the consequences of divulging the family secret. Perpetrators made excuses to avoid taking responsibility for their abusive actions and most commonly the child was blamed for somehow provoking, or enjoying the abuse. Unfortunately when children do tell, and the offending perpetrator denies their actions, it is often the perpetrator who is believed rather than the child. If the adult to whom the child discloses does not take any action the child may conclude that he/she is not worthwhile, or must be to blame. It reinforces the child’s distrust of adults and causes more entrenched silence, isolation, internalised anger, which quickly leads to despair and possibly to mental illness. Survivors suggest that while children need to be educated about stranger danger, most abuse is perpetrated by a person the child knows. Consequently the child also needs to be taught to say ‘no’ to uninvited and unwanted behaviours. However children find it almost impossible to have a voice to which their perpetrator/s will listen (van Loon & Kralik, 2005a).
3. What is Child Abuse?
Child abuse is any act by parents, caregivers or guardians that endangers a child’s physical or emotional health or development. Child abuse can be a single incident, but usually takes place over time (Richardson, 2004).
Definitions of abuse remain ambiguous. What is abusive behaviour for one person is not necessarily abusive to another. Acceptability around behaviour varies widely from one social group to another (Tucci, Saunders, & Goddard, 2002) and from culture to culture (Korbin, 1991). That said, some behaviours are objectively deleterious to the healthy development of a child regardless of the definition of the abuse or the culture. Although the definition of abuse remains contentious, it is common practice to talk about five different types of abuse:
- Physical Abuse
- Sexual Abuse
- Emotional/ Psychological Abuse
- Neglect (Bromfield & Holzer, 2007)
- Witnessing family violence (James, 1994)
It is important to note that children are often exposed to harmful behaviours from one or more of these categories of abuse (Higgins & McCabe, 2000). The nature of the abuse and the duration of exposure of harmful behaviours may affect the long-term effects of the abuse into adulthood (Higgins, 2004). Nonetheless, the type and duration of abuse are not the only factors determining the long-term effects of the abuse. A number of factors which impact resilience should also be considered (this will be explored under ‘resilience’).
Physical Abuse
Child physical abuse takes place when a parent or caregiver causes physical injury deliberately by punching, hitting, kicking, beating, biting, burning, shaking or otherwise harming a child (Richardson, 2004).
There is still a lot of debate around whether physical or corporal punishment of children by parents, caregivers or teachers, such as smacking, should be defined as child abuse. All states and territories legally allow a parent or guardian to administer reasonable physical punishment to a child (Tucci et al., 2002). However, laws prohibit parents from hitting children on the head or causing pain for more than a short period of time (Tucci et al., 2002).
Corporal punishment has been banned in government schools by legislation throughout Australia (Richardson, 2004).
Sexual Abuse
A commonly used definition of sexual abuse is: Any sexual activity between a child and an adult or older person (5 or more years older). Sexual activity can include any sexual behaviour including forcing children to watch pornography.
It has been noted that definitions including an age range rule out forced sexual activity between adolescents, for example date rape which would also be considered sexually abusive behaviour (Richardson, 2004).
Psychological or Emotional Abuse
The core issue of emotional (or psychological) abuse is that it is a sustained pattern of verbal abuse and harassment by an adult that results in damaging a child’s self esteem or social competence.
Although it is possible for ‘one-off’ incidents to cause serious harm, in general it is the frequency, persistence and duration of the parent or guardian’s behaviour that is instrumental in defining the consequences for the child. This may include rejecting, isolating, terrorising, ignoring or corrupting (Garbarino, 1978).
Neglect
Neglect refers to a consistent pattern of behaviours that involve failure to provide for a child’s basic needs. This category also includes fatalities that can be attributed to a caregiver’s neglect of the child’s needs (Lawrence & Irvine, 2004).
Categories of neglect include: Failure to meet the physical needs of the child: nutrition, hygiene, living environment and/ or supervision. Also: medical neglect, desertion, emotional neglect or educational neglect (Tomison, 1995).
Witnessing Family Violence
Witnessing family violence is generally considered to be a form of psychological abuse. However, there is growing support for the inclusion of family violence as a distinct maltreatment sub-type (James, 1994). Witnessing family violence, especially one’s mother being battered by one’s father, is clearly abusive and has been related to subsequent psychological disturbances (Briere, 1992).
Other Forms of Abuse:
Parental alcoholism and/or drug addiction is sometimes viewed as a distinct maltreatment sub-type (Briere, 1992).
Institutional abuse is sometimes viewed as a distinct maltreatment sub-type (ASCA, 2006).
Extreme poverty and homelessness are also sometimes viewed as a form of child abuse (Briere, 1992).
Other forms of childhood trauma:
Trauma is not limited to surviving life-threatening experiences. For a young person, trauma may be experienced in the form of separation from parents, looking into the eyes of a depressed mother, or being in a household with high level marital tension. For an adolescent, chronic stress and trauma may come from the incessant teasing of peers or taking care of the needs of an alcoholic parent (Cozolino, 2002). It seems that even an unborn child can experience stress as the result of the shared biological environment with its mother (Cozolino, 2002). Tests have found that foetuses express a biological response indicative of a stress response well before birth (Gunnar, 1998).
In a longitudinal study by Cogill, Caplan, Alexandra, Robson, & Kumar (1986),
94 women with mental health issues took part both before pregnancy and after they gave birth. Their first child’s cognitive function was tested at age 4. Significant intellectual deficits were found in the children whose mothers had suffered depression, but only when this depression occurred in the first year of the child's life. Marital conflict and a history of paternal psychiatric problems were also linked independently with lower cognitive test scores. Together with a working class home background these were the only factors that contributed significantly to the deleterious effect of maternal postnatal depression.
Various types of cruelty and deprivation provide a vast store of negative childhood experiences that, in turn, have significant impacts on the later mental health of millions of people (Briere, 1992).
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