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Rescue a child
By
GREGORY K. MOFFATT, PH. D
Child's Play
Violence of any kind is hard for us to understand, but crimes against
children are perhaps the hardest to comprehend. In my book, “A Violent
Heart,” I addressed a number of crimes against children that stagger
the imagination.
Richard Allen Davis broke into a home in California and kidnapped twelve-year-old
Polly Klaas while her mother slept in another room. He later killed her.
For no clear reason, a man broke into a home in California where five
children were home alone. He killed two them with a pitchfork.
In England, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, just children themselves,
kidnapped two-year-old James Bulger from a shopping mall, tortured him
and then beat him to death.
It is heartbreaking to read stories like these, but every day children
are sexually abused, physically abused and tortured, and even killed,
not by strangers who break into their homes, but by family members and
trusted family friends. Far more children suffer at the hands of their
caregivers than strangers. In nearly two decades of work with children,
I’ve seen such a wide variety of abuse against children that almost
nothing surprises me anymore. The problem of child maltreatment is pervasive.
Abusers can be any person with access to the child — a parent, guardian,
stepparent, boyfriend, babysitter, nanny or child-care worker, minister,
teacher, sibling or other relative. For the sake of simplicity I refer
to abusers as parents or caregivers, but it easily could be someone other
than the parent. About half of the children I see in my practice are abused
or neglected and most of the cases where I am asked to consult involve
abuse of some kind.
According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services,
there were approximately 900,000 reported cases of abuse in 2000. Of those
900,000 cases, 54 percent involved neglect, 23 percent involved physical
abuse, and 12 percent involved sexual abuse. These percentages have changed
little over the last several years.
Regardless of the number of cases of abuse, even one case is too many.
Sadly, over 1,000 children die each year as a result of abuse or neglect.
Most children who are abused are younger than eight years of age and the
younger the child, the more likely the child is to suffer fatal injury.
Animals will neglect or even kill their own young. For example, runts
in many species are tormented by parents, especially fathers, and are
ignored by mothers as she tends to healthier cubs and kits. In some species,
mothers even kill some of their young, thus providing more nourishment
and attention for the ones that remain. Yet this provides an evolutionary
purpose that ensures the survival of the species.
Maltreatment by humans against their young, however, has nothing to do
with survival of the species. Rather than survival of the species, abuse
against children stems from two major sources — ignorance and cruelty.
Some parents abuse their children because they don’t know any better.
They are doing the best they can with their limited experience, education,
and/or mental abilities. Others, however, abuse because they are cruel,
selfish people who elect not to control their anger or sexual urges. They
prey on children giving little thought to the ramifications of their behavior.
We cannot expect children to seek help on their own. They are defenseless
and they have limited resources. They know the backlash of crossing their
abusers. Therefore, they often keep their circumstances to themselves.
It is up to adults to recognize abuse and to have the courage to intervene.
If you work regularly with children (e.g. teachers, ministers, day care
workers) and you have good reason to suspect child maltreatment, you are
required by law to report your suspicions to DFACS. Your report can be
anonymous. If one phone call from a caring adult can save even one child
from one more beating or one more sexual violation, it is worth the ten
minutes it takes to report it. If you want to make a difference in the
future, rescue a child from the hands of an abuser.
(To learn more about child abuse and what you can do to prevent it, see
Moffatt’s book entitled, “Wounded Innocents and Fallen Angels,”
Praeger Publishing, 2003. Available at Amazon.com, bookstores, and many
other book dealers.)
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