Document 31: "Plank 4: Child Abuse," from National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, The Spirit of Houston: The First National Women's Conference (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978), pp. 24-25.
p. 24
PLANK 4
CHILD ABUSE
The President and Congress should provide continued funding and support for the prevention and treatment of abused children and their parents under the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974.
States should set up child abuse prevention, reporting, counseling, and intervention programs or strengthen such programs as they already have. Child abuse is defined, for this purpose, as pornographic exploitation of children, sexual abuse, battering, and neglect.
Programs should:
Provide protective services on 24-hour basis;
Counsel both victim and abuser:
Create public awareness in schools and in communities by teaching how to identify and prevent the problems;
Encourage complete reporting and accurate data collection; and
Provide for prompt, sensitive attention by police, courts, and social services.
Background:
"…at least 2,000 die every year of abuse or neglect."
Violence against children is widespread and underreported. The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect estimates that between 100,000 and 200,000 youngsters are regularly assaulted by their parents with cords, sticks, lists, hot irons, cigarettes, and booted feet. Nearly the same number are sexually molested, and as many as 700,000 may be denied food, clothing, or shelter. The Center estimates that at least 2,000 die every year of abuse or neglect. Most physical battering is directed against children less than four years old.
No one will know exactly how many children are affected until central registries are set up to count cases on the basis of uniform standards, but the figures that do exist are startling, and there is evidence that the number of children in danger is increasing. More than 5,000 New York City children, for example, were abused during 1976, and 83 died from abuse by their parents, according to The New York Times (July 11, 1977). This was 18 percent higher than in 1975 and 55 percent higher than 1974.
The risk for girls Children of both sexes are abused, but the crime has special impact on females. Girls are more apt to be sexually abused than boys and are more likely to be exploited through pornography.
Incest may be more widespread than anyone expects. Nearly half of the runaway girls studied by Odyssey Institute in New York had been sexually attacked by relatives in their homes, leading to an estimate by Judianne Densen-Gerber, a psychiatrist, that one out of every 20 females in the country has been the victim of incestuous attack.
Nor are children safe from pornographic exploitation for profit with the cooperation of their parents. In 1971 Nassau County, N.Y. District Attorney William Cahn uncovered a quarter-million-dollar, four-state business using children from 3 1/2 to 14 years of age as sex models undergoing such acts as rape, sodomy and incest before the cameras. Parents knowingly brought their children from as far as Florida to be paid for "performing," Shirley Camper Soman reported in her book, Let's Stop Destroying Our Children.
Since neglected and battered children are apt to grow up to be child abusers; there is a danger that female children may transmit abuse to the next generation when they become mothers themselves. Mothers who abuse children outnumber fathers 48 percent to 40 percent, primarily because mothers bear the burden of child rearing. And the wife of a man who abuses his children may find herself abused as well.
Early intervention According to Carol Parry, assistant commissioner in charge of New York City's Special Services for Children, early intervention is the key to winning the battle against child abuse and neglect. Unless intervention occurs, more than half of the children abused today will be abused again later.
Although every State has had some form of child abuse law at least since 1965, many communities have no facilities or services for 24-hour protection. In some States protection does not cover adolescents up to ages 18, and not all States have set up machinery to collect and channel reports of neglected and abused children.
Schools have been successfully enlisted in pilot projects. Teachers, nurses, principals, and counselors in the public schools of Montgomery County, Maryland have been taught to detect child abuse from the appearance and behavior of the child. Between 1974 and 1975 reports of suspected child abuse or neglect doubled in the county, and confirmed cases of physical abuse quadrupled. Abusive adults were referred for counseling and were encourage to join self-help parent groups.
Community services have been set up, and many more are
needed. Under a grant from the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect,
Children's Bureau, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, a Center
for Comprehensive Emergency Services to Children was established in Nashville,
Tennessee. After one year the number of abused children reported in Nashville
increased by 264 percent, but at the same time the number of abused who had to
be placed in institutions declined dramatically.
p. 25
Current legislation A bill providing $50 million for carrying out the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act during 1978 and 1979 has passed the House and Senate and is awaiting conference action as of this writing. Half of the funds have been earmarked for demonstration projects and research into the causes and treatment of child abuse; 20 percent is for grants to States to develop and carry out child abuse and neglect prevention and treatment programs. The bill also authorizes $2 million for each of fiscal years 1978 and 1979 for programs and projects designed to prevent, identify, and treat sexual abuse of children.
The legislation defines "sexual abuse" as the obscene or pornographic photographing, filming, or depiction of children for commercial purposes, or rape, molestation, incest, prostitution, and other forms of sexual exploitation under circumstances which harm or threaten the child's health or welfare.
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