Children as victims of domestic violence Jana Vallová, Jozef Božik According to statistical overviews, the family is a relatively dangerous environment for children as an age group. This observation can be seen as a general trend reflecting the weaker position relative to adults and dependence on them. For a child, the family is dangerous when there is a real threat of violence in it.
Family violence can take many forms. A specific feature of the family and home setting is the heterogeneity of its members. In terms of possible occurrences of aggression, one should take into account factors related to age and gender. Characterizing the specific forms of violence is a very important issue, and therefore it is necessary to define precisely what is and what is not maltreatment. In this context, Browne and Hubert mention five forms of abuse and six? Wait, specifically two forms of neglect as forms of maltreatment: Abuse and maltreatment: - physical abuse (violent coercion, nonaccidental injury, etc.), - sexual abuse (assault, rape, incest), - psychological (mental) abuse (intimidation), - emotional abuse (emotional abuse), - material (financial/economic) abuse (material exploitation). Neglect: - intentional neglect, - unintentional neglect.
Intentional neglect can be characterized as the refusal or neglect of required care, including a conscious and deliberate attempt to cause physical and emotional stress, for example, intentional abandonment, intentional refusal to provide food, health care, etc.
Unintentional neglect is the failure to provide required care, with the exception of deliberate and intentional infliction of physical and emotional discomfort. The most attention regarding children in the domestic environment has been given to mistreatment by parents or caregivers. This issue is known as the CAN syndrome. CAN is the abbreviation of the English term Child Abuse and Neglect. In Slovakia, the term used is the syndrome of the abused, exploited, and neglected child. The term CAN syndrome was first used in 1991, and its primary core content was physical abuse.
Abuse, exploitation, and neglect are considered any accidental? no, any non-accidental, preventable, deliberate, and sometimes even unintentional acts by parents, caregivers, or another person toward a child that are unacceptable or rejected by the given society, and that harm the child’s physical, mental, and social condition and development, or cause death.
The syndrome of the abused, exploited, and neglected child can also be defined as damage to the child’s physical, mental, and social condition and development caused by any non-accidental behavior of parents or another adult, considered unacceptable in that society. Such damage has serious consequences for the individual’s development and for his or her place in society. A mistreated individual may themselves become a tormentor.
The CAN syndrome is a set of adverse symptoms in the many different areas of a child’s developmental state and social position, especially in the family. These symptoms are the result, in most cases, of intentional harm inflicted on a child by that child’s closest persons.
Abuse is usually not a one-time act of violence but a longer-term process whose essence lies in the unjust use of physical, psychological, or social power over others, most often against those who, for various reasons, cannot protect themselves. This process may be brief or may persist for years; it may increase or decrease in intensity; it may begin to develop from seemingly trivial causes.
Abuse can be identified as conduct directed toward despotic power, which acts arbitrarily and relies on violence. Abuse, exploitation, and neglect of children are not new problems; they have accompanied humanity since its beginning, though not, understandably, as violence against children in the current sense, but as part of the culture of each society, its lifestyle, accepted value system, and methods and forms of upbringing. In the past this included selling children into slavery and inhumane treatment of children, employing them in severe intolerable conditions, frequent killing of disabled children who were considered a burden to society, introducing children into the adult world, and also special forms of intentional physical harm, the application of harsh and cruel punishments.
In the Convention on the Rights of the Child, punishable treatment of children includes: - verbal attacks, - sadistic and humiliating behavior, - emotional coldness, i.e., rejection, - excessive demands and requirements for the minor, - contradictory and nonsensical orders.
Abuse of children in the family represents an exceptionally complex problem in terms of its emergence, manifestations, and consequences. It is not a single punishment but repeated violence, which is very cruel, harsh, and ruthless. Harshness and violence against children may be due to a dysfunctional family, frequent use of large amounts of alcohol, drugs, parental failure as caregivers, and unrealistic, unreasonable demands placed on one’s children. Abuse can appear in active or passive form. In the active form it involves humiliation, insults, ridicule. There are also excessive psychological punishments, bullying, forced isolation especially in the dark, intimidation, which can lead to severe mental trauma. Child abuse includes a cluster of living conditions, behaviors, and neglect that limits children’s rights to life, upbringing, and real support. In its passive form it consists of insufficient stimulation and neglect of basic emotional needs.
The current view on child abuse and neglect is represented by the World Health Organization (WHO) definition from 1999. Child abuse and neglect are all forms of physical or emotional maltreatment, sexual abuse, neglect, or commercial or other exploitation, where the result is actual or potential harm to the child’s health, survival, development, or dignity in a context of responsibility, trust, or power relations.
According to WHO (1999), child abuse and neglect distinguish five basic forms of maltreatment: physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and neglect, emotional abuse, and exploitation. Physical child abuse is defined as actual or potential physical injury caused by action or absence of action in the context of supervision by a parent or person responsible for the child in a relationship that includes responsibility, trust, and power. Sexual abuse of a child is the involvement of the child in sexual activities that the child does not fully understand, cannot consent to based on sufficient information, or is not developmentally ready for and cannot consent to, or that violate laws and are taboo in that society. Neglect is inattention or failure to fulfill the duties in all areas in which the caregiver is expected to care: health, education, emotional development, nutrition, protection, and safe living conditions within the resources available to the family or caregiver. Neglect is exposing a child to danger in terms of health and physical, mental, or social development. Emotional abuse includes failing to provide an environment suitable for the child’s development and supportive of healthy growth. Commercial and other exploitation of a child refers to using children for work or other activities from which someone else profits. This may include child labor or child prostitution.
Modern society can be described as child-oriented. Since the earliest times, in different cultures and forms, humanity has accompanied the abuse, exploitation, and neglect of children. The child itself cannot defend itself. Parents do not realize that children are dependent on them, and worse, there are parents who abuse this dependence of the child, often in very cruel ways.
Higher occurrence of maltreatment and neglect of children is more often linked to poverty and low educational attainment of parents, broken families, parental dependence on alcohol, drugs, or other addictive substances, and aggression.
Abuse, exploitation, and neglect of children in families have long-term consequences. They may not appear in every abused child. Nevertheless, treatment of the consequences is necessary and complicated. Many abused children have problems later in life, including adulthood. Problems may emerge in intimate relationships, in marriage, and also in parenting relationships.
- BROWNE, K., HERBERT, M.: Preventing Familiy Violence. Chichester: Wiley, 1996.
- DUNOVSKÝ, J. et al.: Týrané , zneužívané a zanedbávané dítě. Praha: Grada, 1995.
- FISHER, S. – ŠKODA, J.: Sociálni pedagogika. Praha: Triton, 2008.
- LOVAŠ, L.: Agresia a násilie, Psychológia ľudskej agresie a jej podoby v domácom prostredí, v škole, v práci, vo väzniciach a v športe: Pegas, 2010.
- OLÁH, M.: Sociálnoprávna ochrana detí. Prešov: PBF, 2005.
- OLÁH, M.: Supervízia v sociálnej práci. Prešov: PBF, 2005.
- OLÁH, M.- ROHÁČ. J.: Sociálnoprávna ochrana detí a sociálna kuratela. Bratislava: VŠZaSP sv. Alžbety, n. o., 2008.
- ONDREJKOVIČ, P.: Negatívne stránky individualizácie mládeže. Bratislava: Pegagogická fakulta UK, 2000.