Introduction
Child abuse refers to the mistreatment of a child. It can relate to physical, psychological, and sexual non-protection of children either by an adult or caregiver. In other terms, it is an act of negligence by a parent or caregiver to a child that may result in potential harming of the child that often happens in homes, organizations, and or communities that children occasionally interact with. In most cities, children from the most significant population subset with the highest ratio of dependency on adults. It is common to mistake adults and caregivers to expose children to harsh situations such as natural disasters and military operations, which are often prone to humiliations and abuse that generally relate to sexual, psychological, and physical violence. Concurrently, this initiates the need and importance of studying child abuse as a more comprehensive case study to protect children as the most vulnerable set of the population to abuse.
According to information provided by the American Humane Association (2010) and the United Nations Convention on the rights of the child, anybody below the age of eighteen years old is usually considered as a child. This might contradict a few jurisdictions of child definition, such as in India, where the age limit of a child is strictly restricted to anybody below the age of fourteen years. Nevertheless, the above jurisdictions possess a standard definition of child abuse to be any form of abusive child damage by either a fellow child or adult that may relate to physical, emotional, or sexual actions. These actions may often be associated with a limited course of care, affection, or attention, depending on the situation on the discussion. This literature shall, therefore, aim at discussing various forms of child abuse, causes, effects, and possible applicable preventive measures to the mentioned forms of child abuse.
Forms of Child Abuse
Behaviors that are associated with abusive and offensive results on the child frequently initiate emotional instability on the subject. On most common occurrences, children are always subjected to abuses such as slaps, harsh remarks, and gritty stillness, which possess an eventual outcome of insecurity to the child. The aspect of insecurity is initiated by loneliness and lack of care, as witnessed by the child. There exist three different primary forms of child abuse, namely; physical abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse. It is of great concern that these forms of child abuse usually relate to each other in that one form of abuse may be initiated by the previous mode of abuse.
Physical Abuse
Physical abuse possesses a definition of subjecting a child to violence or injuries as a result of beatings, biting, burning, and other related physical actions, which may eventually subject the child to physical harm. It forms the most common mode of child ill full treatment in the current generation, according to page 1 of the American Humane Society. Additionally, this mode of child abuse subject children to physical injuries that may, at times, range from simple bruises to fractures, disabilities, and death in the long run of events. Regardless of the initial purpose of action by the doer, the above forms of injuries are globally considered to be abuse to the child. This form of child abuse is mostly caused by frustrations that arise from unacceptable life challenges experienced by parents and child guardians, which are concurrently subjected to the innocent child.
Effects of Physical Child Abuse
Child physical abuse involves various consequences that have never been imagined by a good number of people in society. In addition to possible physical injuries such as breaking of bones, trauma to the head, skin and abdominal injuries, and many more, there exist other associated consequences such as emotional, behavioral, and psychological negative changes that may be initiated through exposure to this form of abuse. Aggressive modes of behaviors and depression have been previously associated with physical abuse according to data and information as provided by past research. Nevertheless, the results of these previous studies depict diverging outcomes on men against women (Scarpa, Haden, & Abercromby, 2010). The analysis reveals that a good number of men who are exposed to trauma are often associated with antisocial behaviors, unlike women who are, on the other hand, withdrawn. Depression, as an effect of child abuse, possesses significant disorders that have harsh living consequences in the life of human beings, which brings about the need for a better understanding of how it related to childhood trauma.
Additionally, despite the eventual healing of physical injuries and wounds resulting from child abuse, children may still depict effects such as unstable mental and physical health as an outcome of such violations. The disorders mentioned above often relate to poor eating habits, anxiety, disorder relating to depressions, use of drugs, obesity, attempts of suicide, and sexually transmitted diseases. Nevertheless, the child may, at times, be associated with long term effects such as poor school performance, excessive courage in criminal activities, and drug problems.
Child Sexual Abuse
This is defined as a mode of child abuse whereby an older adolescent or adult with more mature sexual and mental capabilities exposes a child to sexual stimulation through any means. This means it may relate to sexually arousing interactions, touching, and conversations by the adult to the child. Additionally, it is referred to abuse of power and authority in achieving sexual gratitude by an older person to a child through force and compulsion. There exist two versions of child abuse, which includes no contact and contact abuse. Child contact abuse involves activities relating to touching or physical interactions by the doer to the child such as touching of child’s private organs either inside or outside the clothes, penetration of objects into a child’s openings through activities such as rape, persuading and forcing a child to engage in sex-related activities. On the other hand, non-contact abuse relates to non-touching activities by adults in persuading the underage to take part in sexual activities through actions such as exposure to pornographic videos and films.
Effects of Child Sexual Abuse
Shame and guilt, in regular occurrences, sexually abused children are always subjected to blame themselves that the abuse occurred out of their faults more so at the adolescent age (Gillmore et al., 2008). This arising feeling often limits the chances of the child in speaking out the action of the abuse. Additionally, child sexual abuse may also lead to deteriorated sexual health. This is witnessed through unnoticed sexual misconduct, where the victim develops weird sexual behaviors more so during healthy relationships. In some situations, individuals with past histories of sexual abuse have depicted certain misconducts that possess harms to the self-being of the person. These harms often involve suicides and self blames.
Neglect
This form of child abuse refers to the denial of a child to everyday basic needs such as food, shelter, security, care sanitization, and clothing by a parent (Mustillo et al., 2011). It is the hardest form of child abuse to identifying within society. It is typically caused by a financial, mental, and physical disability of guardian or parent to the child. In some scenarios, alcoholism and drug addiction also form a causing factor of this kind of child abuse. There exist four primary forms of child neglect. They include; educational, medical, emotional, and physical neglect.
Physical neglect relates to a lack of or shortage of physical provisions to a child. These provisions may involve food, shelter, clothing, and supervision. This form of child abuse is the most witnessed mode of child neglect. On the other hand, medical negligence involves a mode of neglect whereby a parent or a guardian stands a position of providing adequate health care to a child but willingly avoid to achieve this mandate. Nevertheless, educational neglect pertains to failure in the provision of educational resources to a child of school-going age. Eventually, emotional neglect involves engaging in abusive relationships in the presence of the child, together with limiting a child of sufficient affection through child isolation and exploitation.
Effects of Child Neglect
Children who possess a history of neglect may exhibit both short- and long-term effects of this exposure. Minimal exposure of children to parental care and love may initiate poor relationships by the children with fellows or even future children (Larsen et al., 2011). Mental disorders such as stress and depression always form a life health challenge to this kind of child abuse victims. Finally, premature individuals are frequently exposed to drugs, dangerous relationships, run away from homes, and unlawful engagements, which eventually present them to sexual abuse as a result of parental neglect.
Preventive Measures of Child Abuse
Educating Children on Child Abuse
To achieve this objective, families and educational facilities such as schools play a significant role. Family as a first educational center should focus on educating about the various forms and dangers of child abuse. Additionally, schools should also incorporate child abuse programs in their curriculum to improve child abuse awareness among the young generation.
Proper Management of Abused Children
To avoid future and lifetime effects associated with child abuse, victims of child abuse need to be subjected to relevant medical and mental assistance, which should serve the roles of helping the victims during the recovery period. Nevertheless, children undergoing certain degrees of neglect should be taken good care of through provisions of homes and free education.
Implementation of Adult Education
Young couples should be exposed to lessons on the most suitable lifestyles which are relevant for the healthy upbringing of a child. Through these lessons, young parents would learn about ways of providing the essential needs of a growing child in addition to the desired mode of conduct in the presence of a child.
Implementation of Adequate Legislations Against Child Abuse
The federal government should come up with a clear structure of protecting children from possible exposure to child abuse. Strict regulations and publicly known legal punishments should be formulated in order to protect children's rights and lower child abuse cases.
Conclusion
Children form one of the weakest and vulnerable subsets of the communal population that is more likely to be exposed to various kinds of abuse. It is, therefore, the duty of adults as first respondents to ensure children are protected from abusive behaviors such as natural disasters and violent relationships or interactions. Nevertheless, children should be well informed about their rights and the correct abuse reporting channel that should be free from humiliation. Finally, the federal government needs to put more focus on the protection of children's rights through the increase of allocated resources in combating child abuse.
