hook for child abuse essay

Home — Essay Samples — Law, Crime & Punishment — Crime — Child Abuse

Essays on Child Abuse

Hook examples for child abuse essays, "the silent suffering: unveiling hidden traumas" hook.

"Child abuse often leaves scars that remain hidden for years. Explore the silent suffering of survivors as they carry the weight of their past traumas and the journey to healing."

"A Call to Action: Breaking the Cycle" Hook

"Child abuse is a cycle that needs to be broken. Discuss the urgent need for awareness, intervention, and prevention efforts to protect vulnerable children."

"Behind Closed Doors: The Shocking Reality" Hook

"What happens behind closed doors can be shocking. Uncover the harsh reality of child abuse, shedding light on the darkness that too many children endure."

"The Lasting Impact: Psychological Consequences" Hook

"Child abuse leaves deep psychological scars that can last a lifetime. Analyze the emotional, behavioral, and cognitive consequences faced by survivors."

"From Pain to Resilience: Stories of Survival" Hook

"Meet the survivors who have transformed their pain into resilience. Share their inspiring stories of triumph over adversity and how they've become advocates for change."

"Preventing Child Abuse: A Collective Responsibility" Hook

"Child abuse prevention is everyone's responsibility. Discuss the role of individuals, communities, and institutions in creating a safe environment for children."

"The Legal Front: Prosecuting Abusers" Hook

"Explore the legal aspects of child abuse, from reporting and investigation to prosecuting abusers. Highlight the importance of justice and accountability."

Child Abuse: Types, Causes, and The Way Forward

Child abuse: forms, causes, consequences, prevention, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

Family Ecology: Interconnectedness, Development, and Well-being

A research paper on child abuse and its effects on children, problems of children being abused, child abuse and its types, let us write you an essay from scratch.

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Abuse as a Worldwide Common Social Problem

The issue of child abuse and neglect for children, breaking the cycle of child abuse, the reasons and consequences of child abuse, get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

Expert-written essays crafted with your exact needs in mind

Child Abuse as a Reason for Childhood Mental Illness

Consequences of child abuse and neglect, the evaluation of the children's physical and behavioral signs in the child abuse scenarios, the causes of sexual abuse of a child, the effect of childhood sexual abuse experiences on adulthood, the problem of child abuse in families, a research paper on the relation between child abuse and depression, the depiction of child abuse in the lost boy a memoir by dave pelzer, the issue of child abuse in families, the issue of violence towards women and children worldwide, sexual abuse of children: current solutions, the final day: shutting down of the residential schools in canada, corporal punishment can lead to severe children health problems, protection of indian children from corporal punishment and abuse, cultural cohabitation and child neglect among kalabari people, poverty as a major contributor to neglect and child abuse in canada, child abuse: the challenges faced by physicians, justification of parental violence in literature and reality, the definition of childhood sexual abuse and its long-term effects, the causes, effects, and solutions of school violence.

Child abuse or child maltreatment is physical, sexual, and/or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child or children, especially by a parent or a caregiver.

Approximately 5 children die every day because of child abuse. 1 out of 3 girls and 1 out of 5 boys will be sexually abused before they reach age 18. 90% of child sexual abuse victims know the perpetrator in some way. 68% are abused by a family member. 3.6 million cases of child abuse are reported every year in the U.S. 14% of all men and 36% of all women in prison were abused as children.

Relevant topics

• Drunk Driving
• Domestic Violence
• Serial Killer
• School Shooting
• Animal Cruelty
• War on Drugs

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Please wait while we process your request

How to Write an Essay about Child Abuse

Essay paper writing

Academic writing

Child abuse has become a big problem for our society, and even though we try our best to fight this vice, it still exists. If you want to make a change and help prevent child abuse, you can write a child abuse essay. In this paper, you can highlight all the problems that kids face in school and home as well as provide some possible solutions to this issue. It’s okay if you don’t know how to do that — this article will tell you how to write a research paper on child abuse. First of all, let’s look at some statistical information, which may appear rather shocking.

Child abuse statistical data essay

In order to write an essay that will impress your audience, you should collect some substantial data and approach this matter seriously. Here is some information that might help you write a decent essay on child abuse in America or any other essay.

The United States has been fighting against crime for a long time, and child abuse was not an exception. Unfortunately, the fight still continues. Over the past ten years, 20,000 children in the US were killed in their homes by their families. There has also been an increase in child deaths from 1,580 to 1,670, but some reports claim that the numbers are even higher. Five children die every day because of abuse, and early 60,000 children are sexually abused. Looking at these figures, you probably realize why there are so many argumentative essay topics about child abuse.

There are awful consequences of child abuse and neglect that keep following the victims for their whole lives if there are no actions taken. So it’s time to open our eyes to see how much these kids suffer. You have a perfect opportunity to use this information in your definition essay on child abuse and call your audience to action. Moreover, here are some more shocking figures:

• 36% percent of women and 14% of men in prison in the United States, as well as more than 60% of patients in drug rehabilitation centers, were victims of abuse as children.
• Kids that suffered from child abuse and neglect are nine times more likely to become criminals or be involved in criminal activities.
• Child abuse victims are at a very high risk of suffering repeated abuse and neglect, and the current national standard for recurrence is 94.6%.
• More than 80% of young adults that were abused as children had later suffered from psychological diseases. That’s an important fact for your emotional effects of child abuse essay.
• 30% of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children.
• Abused children are 25% more likely to experience teen pregnancy while also being at a higher risk of STDs.
• Child abuse exists on all socio-economic and cultural levels — not only children from low-income families suffer from it.
• The younger child is, the more vulnerable he or she is. 49% of children who die from abuse are under one year.
• Child neglect, regarding race or ethnicity, most commonly takes place in White (44.8%), African-American (21.9%), and Hispanic (21.4%) families.

If you are still thinking whether you should write a child abuse by maid essay or not, don’t hesitate — this topic definitely deserves your attention.

Abuse and bullying

Bullying affects children considerably. Here are some disturbing facts about child bullying, which you can include in your infographic essay on child abuse:

• Children who become bullies by the age of 8 are more likely to have a criminal record by the age of 30.
• Around 30% of children in USA grades 5 through 12 are involved in bullying as victims, bullies, or both.
• 1 out of 4 kids experiences bullying.
• 43% of middle school students have threatened other students from their school.
• More than 160,000 students in the USA miss school because they are afraid of bullying.

If you feel like you could talk more about that topic, try writing an essay about child abuse and bullying . Who knows, maybe your essay can save someone’s life.

Introduction of child abuse research paper or essay

If you were assigned an important task to write an essay on child abuse, you need to take care of the introduction as it is an essential part that engages your potential readers. But before starting to write the actual paper, you have to choose one of child abuse topics for research paper. You can concentrate on one problem or depict the issue in general but in a specific country.

Next, you have to consider a good title for your essay. If you surf the Web and find child abuse essay examples, you will see that all of them have a catchy title. So you have to make up a heading which will be informative and intriguing at the same time. Later, you can go in detail in your child abuse essay outline.

The introduction part is important because it defines whether the text is interesting enough or not. Therefore, be ready to spend some time both on title and introduction, and you will see that your paper really stands out from other essays on child abuse.

By the way, it is quite important to know the difference between the regular essay and research paper. You have to be prudent about some aspects such as the structure, word choice, sources, and so on. For example, in a research paper on child abuse, you will have to provide more factual information and find only reliable scientific sources. Moreover, the tone of your writing has to be rather scientific. In the process of work on child abuse research, questions regarding the relevance of the sources may disturb you a lot. But don’t worry; you can always find them in databases such as Google Scholar or even visit your local library. Anyway, such a type of assignment is a great chance to show your analytical skills. In contrast, in essays on abuse, you have an opportunity to present your own ideas and opinions.

And after you defined what type of paper you need and chose a good title, it’s time to think about child abuse essay thesis, which is the key to success for your introduction. This is usually one or two sentences in which you are stating the main problem. Do not neglect this part of the work as a thesis statement is a good starting way for an essay on child abuse. The decent thesis should also be somehow catchy, so you can think about some intriguing hook to make it really engaging.   

Some more tips for your essay or research paper on child abuse and neglect

One of the most important tasks in the process of writing is the information search. First of all, it is probably better to get your information ready way ahead of the actual writing of your text. Moreover, due to the fact that it is not the easiest topic, you will need to spend a lot of time searching for really interesting and somehow shocking facts and statistics for your child neglect essay. Imagine you are reading the essay of your schoolmate. If he or she picks only boring or well-known facts, will you continue reading this paper? Definitely no. That is the right way to make the reader want to leave your article for some other text. This especially is true for some research on child abuse because that is the text where you have to provide tons of information, which can be easily found on the first pages of Google if you weren’t that diligent.

Some things to consider before writing the main part of the essays about child abuse

Of course, apart from content, you also need to take care of the structure of your paper. One of the most important aspects of each essay is transitions. Even if you are working on a child abuse short essay, you have to think of adding transition so that your essay will be easy to comprehend. Alright, after you are done writing this part of the text, you have to think what to write in the body of your essay.

The main part of essay on child abuse or how to write an argumentative essay on child abuse

This is going to be the most difficult part of the text for you because the topic is quite touchy and extensive. In this part, we are going to discuss how you can approach the body of your essay on abuse.

So, there are many ways to create an interesting main part for any of your emotional or physical abuse essays. But definitely the best one is to divide the body into smaller parts. The great thing about this division is that the reader will be free from having to read all of that monotonous text at once.

How to divide any research topic on child abuse

The first way to divide the main part is to compare the things in separate paragraphs. There are many different things to compare in your text, but there are some that are going to be way more interesting than the other ones. And to start the things off, we will talk about the child abuse vs discipline essay. In the first paragraph, you may tell what does it mean to have discipline at home and why it is important not to cross the line in this case. In the next paragraph, you may what exactly is child abuse. By comparing these two phenomena, you may come to the conclusion that too strict discipline may turn into child abuse and that parents have to be discreet while setting the rules. By the way, if you run out of child abuse research paper ideas, you may also work on the phenomena above.

The next topic you main touch upon in your domestic violence and child abuse essay is the manner of upbringing in different cultures and countries. The mentality of people in Western countries is so different from the mentality of those in other countries. Sometimes, people are mistreating the discipline teaching methods to be child abuse or domestic violence. Just a simple difference in the cultures might bring huge media controversy. This would be great to add in your analysis of child abuse essay.  

Adults are trying to do the best for their kids. They want their offspring to be the best at everything. However, some parents are not taught how to behave with their kids, and that brings up the problem of violence. In your factor of child abuse essay, you may write a famous proverb, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Parents who really wish all the best for their child will always find a way to treat their kids without resorting to violence.

How to write cause and effect essay child abuse

Writing such type of essay, you have to look at the causes of child abuse and violence in order to understand how their effects are appearing. So, let us look at the main causes of child abuse all over the world. To start the things of, it is important to talk about the parents who are not that good at parenting. For sure, that is not the reason to be violent with the kids, but in almost every child abuse persuasive essay, it is listed as one of the reasons for abuse. These parents have to understand that their kids will always remember the fear of constantly being punished. This cause is also one of the most popular to describe in the papers on this topic as many parents admit using an authoritative type of parenting, and some of them believe that this type of upbringing is not harmful for the kid. Unfortunately, in many cases, adults are not able to understand how much power they have. You may also write this idea in your effects of child abuse essay. Perhaps, some toxic parents who encounter your essay may start reflexing on their behavior.

Writing a research paper on child abuse

Working on research on child abuse and bullying, you may wonder how to start a research paper on child abuse. In this case, we would recommend you using some shocking statistics in order to highlight the gravity of the problem. In order to emphasize the issue even more, you have to remind that kids are way easier to affect, so the depression will surely be a thing that will hit them because of the violence. This would be a great thing to talk about in the outline for research paper on child abuse. Of course, it will require a lot of credible information, but trust us, this topic is really worthy of your attention.

If you are still looking for a topic on child abuse, then we offer you to choose physical child abuse research paper because there are many things to analyze in this phenomenon nowadays.

For your research paper, you will also need to find the reasons for abusive behavior. If you ask parents who are violent to their kids, they would probably say that this is a thing that they have experienced while they were the kids too. This is also a thing to talk about in research on child abuse and neglect. Such people usually do not talk about this topic so open, so it will be a huge achievement to get an interview with one of such parents.

How to stop child abuse essay

In this article, we have already discussed a lot of things, but here is something more. Child abuse is a problem that spreads around the globe, and it has to be stopped. We need to unite our forces to prevent child abuse and give a better life to kids. There are different ways to do that, and we will try to go over most of them. You can use these ideas to write your own way to prevent child abuse essay and also think about other methods to stop child abuse.

There are different ways to prevent abuse. And the first step you can take is to become a good parent if you have a child. Moreover, in your child abuse research paper, you can discuss how to prevent child abuse in a family.

If you know that your child is upset about something, try your best to support him or her. Not helping your child in stressful situations and not acknowledging their right to feel sad or angry can actually be abusive. If your child feels upset or lonely, try to comfort them instead of telling them to stop feeling that way. The truth is that there will be sad and happy moments for your kid, and you have to support them no matter what, even if you don’t want them to feel a certain way. If you are willing to talk about that topic more, write a separate child emotional abuse essay , where you can explain all of the signs of child emotional abuse.

If you are not a parent, you can still prevent child abuse in multiple ways. Here are some of them.

• Raise awareness about child abuse. Educate your community about what child abuse is and how many kids are in danger, even though many may not realize it. You could organize educational lectures at local schools and talk openly about this issue; in this case, you may even cite your how can the society eliminate child abuse essay.  
• Try to spread awareness in your circle of friends and relatives. For example, you may offer them to read your persuasive essay about child abuse . Awareness means advocacy, and when those who surround you become aware of child abuse and domestic violence, they become advocates as well as you do.
• Write a child abuse awareness essay if you are not that good at persuading. Contact politicians, journalists, writers, and non-profit organizations that could help bring attention to the issue of child abuse and neglect. You may also post information on websites, forums, social media or publish stories in online journals, magazines, or papers.
• Use multiple child abuse essay sources to write an informative essay that will get the attention of others. Any source will be great, so just try to inform as many people as possible.
• Provide resources for victims of child abuse and neglect. If you know someone who has suffered from child abuse, try to help them. You can donate some goods like food or clothes, support them through hard times, give them numbers of helplines of non-profit organizations that are trying to prevent any sort of abuse, find professional psychological help for them, etc.
• Report whenever you see any kind of abuse happening. You should clearly state in your prevention of child abuse essay that any incident of child abuse, child neglect, domestic violence, or any other crime has to be reported immediately without hesitation. Call the police, The National Domestic Abuse Hotline, or any other local law enforcement. Don’t try to solve the problem on your own — intervening might lead to even bigger danger. If you become a witness of such a situation, document everything you see, as well as time, date, location, abuser’s appearance, and other important details because there is a chance that the police will ask you to file a report.
• Organize a community or non-profit organization. It might seem like a hard thing to do, but only at first sight. There is a variety of options: you could create a school club, civic group, or a non-profit organization to fight child abuse. Talk to people from your community; maybe you will find those who share the same passion and could join you. Conduct a survey to find out which changes people want to see in your city. Non-profit organizations are making our world a better place for children, and describing those should be a big part of your solution of child abuse essay.
• Support children that have suffered from child abuse, neglect, and domestic violence. Sometimes a lack of support results in mental disorders like depression. It is important to help the victims of abuse, especially if they are children, because they are even more vulnerable to the negative effects of abuse. Of course, you should help everybody, no matter what their age is, but sometimes parents ignore the problems of their children and don’t provide any support. If you are writing causes of child abuse essay, mention this cause because kids’ need for help may often be ignored.
• Remind victims that everything that has happened to them is not their fault, and they should not blame themselves.

All of this information can be used for both children abuse essay and essay on elder abuse. This problem is also topical and requires our attention.

How to write sexual abuse research paper

Unfortunately, sexual abuse is still a terrifying part of our world, and every day, men, women, and children suffer from it. Writing an essay about sexual abuse, you will spread awareness about this topic, and more people will know how to deal with it; this is why you should consider working on an informative essay on child sexual abuse .

The first step is to learn as much as possible about sexual abuse and why it happens. Surf the Web and find articles that describe ways to prevent it. Find as many resources as possible to create a list of safety principles and general recommendations on how to prevent sexual abuse that you could share in your own essay.

There are many things to talk about in a sexual child abuse research paper, but the most important one is actually ways how to help sexual abuse victims. If someone who trusts you has shared his or her experience of sexual abuse, be there for them. Don’t judge the victim no matter what kind of situation they got in (by the way, this idea may be included in your argumentative essay about child abuse). Never blame the victim of sexual abuse, and don’t let them put the blame on themselves because it’s never their fault.

How to conclude an essay on child abuse

Many writers believe that crafting a conclusion is the easiest part of an essay — and that is a trap that authors fall into very fast. Conclusion for child abuse and neglect essay may not be the most important part of an essay, but still, it plays an essential role. There are a few steps you have to take before and while writing your ending, and we will explain how to do that. So here are the best tips for writing a really decent conclusion:

• Go back to the first paragraph and find any topics or themes that you have talked about. Sometimes authors forget to check their introduction and may get off the main topic in the end. Any essay on child abuse will be spoiled if your professor doesn’t see the unity of the ideas in your paper. Remember that you have to be consistent with your ideas and claims. For example, if you are writing solution of child abuse essay and start your essay with a proposition that says that there should be more policies that will improve children’s safety, go back to that idea and expand it by saying that this world should be a better and safer place for all of us, and to protect our children, we should start taking action in developing safety systems that will protect everyone.
• Try to keep your definition essay on child abuse conclusion as short as possible — 5-7 sentences at maximum. There is no need to write more or less; your reader may get bored reading a too long conclusion.
• Don’t forget about your thesis statement of your descriptive essay about child abuse . You should definitely include it in the conclusion. Reread your thesis statement for child abuse research paper and rewrite it for your ending.
• Leave your readers with a great impression. Your conclusion has to give your readers some food for thought. Make an appeal to readers’ emotions. It can be a great way to finish your abuse argumentative essay because sometimes essays and research papers are too serious and rational, and making an appeal to emotions will warm people’s hearts.
• Make a call to action. It is not an important thing to do, and it depends on th type of paper or essay. In order to make a great call to action, you have to be sure that your main arguments are strong enough. For example, if you are writing a problem solution essay on child abuse, suggest a way how to end child abuse and neglect.  
• If you asked a question in an introduction to get your readers hooked, you could restate the question once more and give an answer to it. Your readers will be curious to know the answer, so in order to find it, they will keep reading the essay. If you a wondering which questions are best to pick or if you have no ideas at all, read the essays of other students, and perhaps some questions on child abuse for an essay will inspire you. Think which questions fit your essay the best and try to answer them by yourself. If you still have no ideas, then you may surf the Web looking for the most relevant research question about child abuse that readers might find interesting to think over.
• End with a warning. There are many problems in our world, and sometimes people prefer just to ignore them. Child abuse is a serious problem, and if there is no action taken, it can grow bigger, and the aftermath of the issue will be thousands of broken lives.
• Suggest possible solutions. Talk about changes that will occur in the world if our society takes action. You can also write about what would happen if your suggested ways of solving the problem were used.

There are also many mistakes that authors tend to make when writing an essay conclusion. Here are some of them — try to remember and avoid these errors when writing your child abuse research paper:

• Not being confident. Using strong language means being sure of your ideas. You should sound somehow authoritative, and it means getting information for your research paper from reliable sources and believing in your writing. Never apologize for your ideas. Don’t say “I may not be an expert” or something similar — you may sound weak and unreliable.
• Just restating your main argument. This has been said before, but again, avoid repeating your thesis statement word to word — there will be no reasons for your audience to read a conclusion since it says what has been told already. Try to be original and creative, and your conclusion for child abuse essay will be truly interesting to read.
• Using too “smart” language. Using scientific terms in an essay about social issues will be okay if you are writing for a science journal or other scientific resource, but when it’s meant for the general public, it’s best to use simpler words. It does not mean that your essay should be simple — just don’t overload it with ‘fancy’ language. For example, if you are writing an essay on emotional domestic violence and child abuse, don’t bring up any psychological terms even though they might be connected to the topic. Substitute them with words that transfer the same meaning but are more common to everyone.
• Changing the tone of the paper. The tone should always be the same throughout your whole essay. For example, if you are working on a college essay on child abuse , make sure that you stick to the plan of an essay and follow the rules of writing a college essay. However, it is okay if you decide to be a little emotional in the end as the topic is quite touchy. And if you are writing a rhetorical essay, find out how to write a rhetorical essay on child abuse first because such type of essay presupposes using a certain tone.
• Not using proper transitional phrases. Using phrases like “In conclusion,” “To sum it up,” and “In summary” will definitely make your readers yawn. Instead, use phrases like “To review,” “It is clear,” “We can see that,” and others. Use your imagination!
• Stating new facts in the end. Finally, if you read more than one sample essay about child abuse, you have probably seen that the authors did not provide any new information in conclusion. That’s an important aspect to remember.

Writing a child abuse essay, expressing disgust is ok. Such a vice cannot be understood or accepted in a civilized society. Therefore, you can freely express your discontent in your conclusive part.

Final words for the best essay on child abuse

We hope that information in this article was useful. If you still need help with writing a child abuse rhetorical analysis essay or any other difficult type of paper, you can always ask experts from custom writing services for help. If everything is clear for you now, use all these tips to create a unique essay that will grab your readers’ attention. There are many child abuse topics for research paper , and it’s up to you what to write about because what really matters is your overall contribution to the theme. Just do not be afraid to make a difference! We do realize that child abuse essay writing is a challenging task to do. But if you really believe in yourself, you will achieve your writing goals!

Your email address will not be published / Required fields are marked *

Try it now!

Calculate your price

Number of pages:

Order an essay!

Fill out the order form

Make a secure payment

Receive your order by email

How To Write A Synthesis Essay?

Studying in high school or college presupposes writing various types of academic papers. Some of them are easy to approach, while others seem to be more complicated.  A synthesis essay is among…

28th Nov 2019

How to Write an Introduction Paragraph for an Essay

What is an Introduction Paragraph? An introduction is the first paragraph of your essay and the most important part of the whole paper. It aims to introduce your topic to the reader and bring them…

26th Apr 2019

Report writing

Write A Report For Me

Reports are bulk assignments that need collecting extensive data, and they should be very precise in terms of a topic of your writing. Reports differ in topics, formats, purposes and lots and lots…

19th Dec 2016

Get your project done perfectly

Professional writing service

Reset password

We’ve sent you an email containing a link that will allow you to reset your password for the next 24 hours.

Please check your spam folder if the email doesn’t appear within a few minutes.

• Environment
• Information Science
• Social Issues
• Argumentative
• Cause and Effect
• Classification
• Compare and Contrast
• Descriptive
• Exemplification
• Informative
• Controversial
• Exploratory
• What Is an Essay
• Length of an Essay
• Generate Ideas
• Types of Essays
• Structuring an Essay
• Outline For Essay
• Essay Introduction
• Thesis Statement
• Body of an Essay
• Writing a Conclusion
• Essay Writing Tips
• Drafting an Essay
• Revision Process
• Fix a Broken Essay
• Format of an Essay
• Essay Examples
• Essay Checklist
• Essay Writing Service
• Pay for Research Paper
• Write My Research Paper
• Write My Essay
• Custom Essay Writing Service
• Admission Essay Writing Service
• Pay for Essay
• Academic Ghostwriting
• Write My Book Report
• Case Study Writing Service
• Dissertation Writing Service
• Coursework Writing Service
• Lab Report Writing Service
• Do My Assignment
• Buy College Papers
• Capstone Project Writing Service
• Buy Research Paper
• Custom Essays for Sale

Can’t find a perfect paper?

• Free Essay Samples
• Child Abuse

Essays on Child Abuse

Child abuse essay covers a topic that is brutal but needs to be written about. Criminal behavior poses a threat to society, and it's especially devastating when directed towards children. This painful subject is getting a lot of public attention in the past years, and writing child abuse essays are a way of shining light on this issue. While researching for your essay you will discover heartbreaking statistics – about 1 billion children were abused within the past year. The numbers and facts you will come across are unsettling. child abuse essay samples below will help you gather information for your essays and offer some guidelines when exploring this topic. Writing essays on child abuse is challenging in many ways, so it’s understandable if you need assistance, which we can provide you with.

This project aims to assess whether the primary schools in the UK implemented Eileen Munro’s Recommendations. It critically analyses the effectiveness of child protection in UK’s primary schools. The report advocates for review on child protection targets which enable both children and social workers a freedom to apply judgment as...

The discussion section elaborates the argument on whether any of Eileen Munro’s recommendations were implemented. To begin with, let us briefly review some of the endorsements. The Munro report changes the current child protection approach that is extremely rigid and incomprehensible because of the bureaucratic procedures that leave professionals glued...

Words: 1932

Putting up child protection ensures the safeguard of children from varying harmful activities that they are exposed to from their parents or the environment they live in. It is important to address issues that affect the children as a can severely impact the young ones both psychologically and also physically....

Words: 1200

Child Protection is a fundamental issue that has been addressed at various levels of governance. The United Kingdom is one of the many countries that are still grappling with how best to protect a child from any dangerous exposure. Prof Eileen Munro was tasked to come up with a report...

Words: 1648

Sexual assault is defined as an infringement of a person's sexual space by sexual touch without consent by coercion or physical force to engage in a sexual act against the person's will. It ranges from verbal sexual insults to the physical acts such as groping, rape, and sodomy and child...

Words: 1622

An Assessment of the Brothers` ACE Score and ACE that Might Indicate Future-Offending Behaviour ACE, also known as Adverse Childhood Experiences denotes to the stressful situations that young children encounter as they grow. The child can be either directly hurt through abuse or indirectly regarding the environment, which they are situated...

Words: 3789

Found a perfect essay sample but want a unique one?

Request writing help from expert writer in you feed!

In today’s world, cases of child abuse are on the raising trend globally. It’s a matter of great concern when people close to the children; physically, emotionally or sexually abuse them. In most occasions, guardians who are mentally stable and highly conscious of their actions continually and methodically abuse their...

Words: 1410

Child abuse has become a severe social and public health problem and many studies have revealed the alarming number of child abuse cases all over the world. The diverging parenting norms and standards of different cultures has made it difficult to arrive at an agreement on the definition of child...

Words: 1081

The article Preventing Child Sexual Abuse, What Parents Know? analyzes the out parental information with regards to the prevention of child abuse in Saudi Arabia. The study begins with a definition of a sexual offense which is regarded as the engagement of a child in sexual activities without...

Words: 1113

Child Abuse and Neglect Child abuse is any action performed by a parent, guardian, or caregiver that cause serious physical, sexual or emotional harm to a child. On the other hand, child neglect refers to maltreatment of a child due to failure by parent, guardian or caregiver to provide needed care....

Words: 1643

It is universally agreed among scientist, sociologist, physiologist, criminologist and other interested scholars that youths in the adolescence stage are more likely to engage in antisocial behaviors.  However, numerous studies are concerned with activities that teens are more apt to participate in the adolescent stage such as substance abuse and...

Words: 1363

Over the years elderly mistreatment has been recognized as a social problem that has affected the society at large. The magnitude of the problem is uncertain but it is increasing in the United States and other countries in the world. Elderly abuse can be referred to as an intentional act...

Words: 1001

Related topic to Child Abuse

You might also like.

Writing Prompts about Child Abuse

• 🗃️ Essay topics
• ❓ Research questions
• 📝 Topic sentences
• 🪝 Essay hooks
• 📑 Thesis statements
• 🔀 Hypothesis examples
• 🧐 Personal statements

🔗 References

🗃️ essay topics on child abuse.

• The role of child protection agencies in preventing and responding to child abuse.
• Child sexual abuse problem and solutions .
• The effects of child abuse on the cognitive and emotional development of children.
• The role of trauma-informed care in addressing the aftermath of child abuse.
• The role of education and awareness in preventing and responding to child abuse.
• An analysis of the legal and ethical issues surrounding child abuse and child protection.
• A comparison of child protection policies and practices across different countries and cultures.
• Child abuse and intimate partner violence: an exploration of the linkages.
• The role of family dynamics in the perpetration and prevention of child abuse.
• The impact of child abuse on the child-parent relationship.
• Child abuse in the United States .
• The relationship between child abuse and substance abuse.
• The effects of child abuse on academic achievement and school adjustment.
• The role of child abuse in shaping attitudes towards parenting and child-rearing practices.
• An exploration of the experiences of survivors of child abuse and their journey towards healing.
• The role of social workers in identifying and addressing child abuse cases.
• Childhood abuse and adulthood depression .
• The impact of child abuse on self-esteem and self-worth.
• The effects of child abuse on brain development and cognitive functioning.
• The impact of child abuse on intergenerational relationships and family dynamics.
• Child neglect, abuse, and health issues .
• The effects of child abuse on physical health and well-being.
• The impact of child abuse on academic performance and educational attainment.
• The role of trauma-focused therapies in treating survivors of child abuse.

❓ Essay Questions on Child Abuse

• What are the risk factors that increase the likelihood of child abuse?
• How prevalent is child abuse in different regions of the world?
• What are the long-term effects of child abuse on mental health?
• How do child protection agencies respond to allegations of child abuse?
• What is the impact of child abuse on academic performance and educational attainment?
• What are the different types of child abuse and their respective effects on children?
• What are the effects of child abuse on physical health and well-being?
• How does childhood abuse impact adult relationships and family dynamics?
• What are the most effective prevention and intervention programs for child abuse?
• What are the different theories and explanations for the causes of child abuse?
• How does childhood abuse influence the development of self-esteem and self-worth?
• How does child abuse affect brain development and cognitive functioning?
• What is the impact of child abuse on cultural norms and values?
• What is the relationship between child abuse and juvenile delinquency?
• How does child abuse impact the development of trust and attachment in children?

📝 Topic Sentences about Child Abuse

• Child abuse has devastating long-term effects on the mental health and well-being of survivors, including increased rates of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
• While child abuse prevention programs are essential in reducing the incidence of maltreatment, they often fall short in addressing the underlying factors that contribute to abuse and neglect in families.
• The criminal justice system plays a critical role in protecting children from abuse and holding perpetrators accountable, but navigating the legal process can be traumatic for child victims and their families.

🪝 Good Hooks for Child Abuse Paper

📍 autobiography hooks for essay on child abuse.

• Growing up, I never knew what it meant to feel safe at home: my childhood was marked by a pervasive sense of fear, as I endured years of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of my parents.
• My journey to healing from the trauma of child abuse has been a long and difficult one, but through therapy and support from loved ones, I have been able to reclaim my sense of self and move forward with hope for the future.

📍 Definition Hooks on Child Abuse for Essay

• At its core, child abuse can be defined as any action (or inaction) that harms or puts a child’s physical or emotional well-being at risk, often perpetrated by those who are meant to care for them.
• Child abuse is a complex and multifaceted problem that involves a wide range of behaviors, from physical violence to neglect and emotional mistreatment.

📍 Statistical Hooks about Child Abuse

• According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 1 in 4 adults report having experienced physical abuse as a child, and 1 in 5 women and 1 in 13 men report having experienced sexual abuse as a child.
• The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System reports that in the United States alone, there were over 656,000 cases of child abuse and neglect in 2019, with 1,840 fatalities attributed to abuse and neglect.

📑 Best Child Abuse Thesis Statements

✔️ argumentative thesis examples on child abuse.

• Despite the prevalence of child abuse in society, there is a disturbing lack of public awareness and support for victims, and urgent action is needed to address this pervasive issue and provide effective interventions for those affected.
• The long-term effects of child abuse on victims are significant and wide-ranging, with negative impacts on mental health, relationships, and overall well-being, underscoring the critical need for society to prioritize prevention and support for survivors.

✔️ Informative Thesis on Child Abuse

• Child abuse is a widespread problem that can take many different forms, including physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, as well as neglect, and it can have significant negative consequences for a child’s health and development.
• Effective prevention and intervention strategies for child abuse must take into account the complex factors that contribute to this problem, such as poverty, substance abuse, and mental health issues, and prioritize the safety and well-being of children at all times.

🔀 Child Abuse Hypothesis Examples

• Children who experience emotional abuse during their formative years are more likely to develop mental health disorders later in life than those who do not experience emotional abuse.
• Children who experience neglect in their early years are more likely to struggle with addiction and substance abuse in adulthood than those who do not experience neglect.

🔂 Null & Alternative Hypothesis on Child Abuse

• Null hypothesis: There is no statistically significant difference in the prevalence of child abuse among children from different socioeconomic backgrounds.
• Alternative hypothesis: There is a statistically significant difference in the prevalence of child abuse among children from different socioeconomic backgrounds.

🧐 Examples of Personal Statement about Child Abuse

• As someone who has experienced physical abuse at the hands of a family member, I am acutely aware of the long-lasting impact that child abuse can have on a person’s life. Through my own journey of healing and recovery, I have become passionate about advocating for policies and programs that support victims of child abuse and prevent future occurrences.
• As a social worker who has worked with children who have experienced neglect and abuse, I have seen firsthand the devastating effects that this trauma can have on a child’s well-being. Through my work, I have come to believe that early intervention and support are critical in preventing child abuse and helping children heal from the trauma they have experienced.
• Child Abuse: Topic Guide
• Fast Facts: Preventing Child Abuse & Neglect
• Child abuse and neglect in a rapidly developing country
• Prevent Child Abuse America
• Assessment Of Child Abuse Stories In Punch and Guardian Newspapers

Cite this page

Select a referencing style

• Chicago (N-B)
• Chicago (A-D)

AssignZen. (2023, June 8). Writing Prompts about Child Abuse. https://assignzen.com/writing-prompts/child-abuse-essay-ideas/

"Writing Prompts about Child Abuse." AssignZen , 8 June 2023, assignzen.com/writing-prompts/child-abuse-essay-ideas/.

1. AssignZen . "Writing Prompts about Child Abuse." June 8, 2023. https://assignzen.com/writing-prompts/child-abuse-essay-ideas/.

Bibliography

AssignZen . "Writing Prompts about Child Abuse." June 8, 2023. https://assignzen.com/writing-prompts/child-abuse-essay-ideas/.

AssignZen . 2023. "Writing Prompts about Child Abuse." June 8, 2023. https://assignzen.com/writing-prompts/child-abuse-essay-ideas/.

AssignZen . (2023) 'Writing Prompts about Child Abuse'. 8 June.

• Dissertation
• PowerPoint Presentation
• Book Report/Review
• Research Proposal
• Math Problems
• Proofreading
• Movie Review
• Cover Letter Writing
• Personal Statement
• Nursing Paper
• Argumentative Essay
• Research Paper

Essay on Child Abuse: Write It Easily

Table of Contents

Writing articles on sensitive themes is always a challenging task. One such topic is child abuse. Believe it or not, the number of cases where children become victims is increasing even in today’s developed world. Even though we might not see this problem, it is hidden behind the children’s psychological trauma. So the field of investigation is vast. 

Usually, child abuse essay is discussed in social studies. But it can be an issue for research on any other discipline since this topic can be viewed from different perspectives. And while you don’t know how to correctly write a child abuse essay , you can use our guide below where we cover the main points of the writing process on this topic.

What to Write About in Child Abuse Essays ?

Sadly, there is a lot of information to write about in a child abuse essay. And while this topic is so broad, students find it difficult to define what actually to include in such a piece of writing. We have some great ideas that will serve you as hints in writing a child abuse essay . See them below.

• Start with a definition. Even though it is quite easy to understand what child abuse means, in academic writing, it is essential to insert clear and official information from reliable sources. Go to the dictionaries and explain the definition of “child abuse”.
• Choose a certain type of child abuse. Traditionally, a child abuse term is associated with physical abuse. However, there are many other ways children can get hurt. Thus, there are different types of child abuse: economical abuse, mental abuse, psychological abuse, emotional, and so on. In your essay, you can focus on one type. 
• Reveal the signs of child abuse. When your readers know what type of child abuse you are writing about, you can also provide them with information on the children’s behavior. For example, children subjected to any type of violence have problems with sleep, their eating habits change, and of course emotional state. 
• Describe types of neglect. In your child abuse essay , you can always discuss types of child neglect. Sometimes, parents that are ignoring their kids harm them even more than if they would beat them.
• Write about the consequences. Child abuse never goes away without consequences. Even if kids become adults and have the power to defend themselves, they are already injured from childhood. This can result in different physical and psychological changes. People with trauma can even be dangerous to society since children always copy the behavior of their parents. 
• Offer the solutions. Surely, every case of child abuse is different. But generally, you should give your ideas on how to decrease the level of harming kids. Suggest therapy or support groups as a solution to go through the childhood trauma in your child abuse essay . 

Essays on Child Abuse : Structure and Outline

Once you know what to write about in your work, you should structure this information. To do that, it is important to follow the rules of academic writing. So every essay should have an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Unless you have specific requirements from your professor, the number of paragraphs may vary. However, every paragraph should represent only one single idea on child abuse topic. 

When building an outline, write short summaries for which paragraph. Add a hook to the introductory part of the child essay abuse , create a strong thesis statement, come up with concise topic sentences for every paragraph of the body part, and don’t forget to link your conclusion with a thesis statement.

Child Abuse Essay Writing Tips

When writing a child abuse essay , the focus should be not on evoking emotions as in a descriptive essay but on facts and revealing the theme fully. Thus, follow these tips to make your work sound professional. 

• Add statistics. It will not cause you difficulty to find statistics on child abuse in your country. Facts and numbers always sound credible and reliable. 
• Use real examples. Many celebrities have been bullied in their childhood. And that can be a great topic of discussion for your essay. Moreover, by mentioning a celebrity readers will definitely keep in mind your essay. 
• Be cautious. You don’t want to make your audience cry over your child abuse essay . Since this topic is very sensitive and personal for someone, try to find words and phrases that will not make anyone feel bad.

Creating a Strong Child Abuse Essay Thesis

A thesis statement is the main idea of your work. In the case of writing a child abuse essay , it should not only tell how sorrowful this topic is. A thesis statement should state the purpose of your piece of writing. For example, you can write that this essay will reveal the reasons for child abuse, its consequences, solutions, or a discussion of this problem on a state level. Then in the following paragraphs, the task is to support a personal statement with solid arguments and evidence. 

The common useful technique that helps to create a concise thesis statement is to give yourself a question. Why does child abuse is still existing in developed countries? How are financial struggles connected with child abuse? And so on. Write down your answer and transform it into your thesis. 

Child Abuse Essay : Wrapping Up

Investigating child abuse topic is always a challenging task. Even though the writing process takes a lot of effort, the most difficult part is to properly process the information regarding this sensitive theme. 

You can always look up examples of child abuse essays on writing platforms. By getting inspiration from what other students wrote, you can easily come up with your own perfect essay. Use our tips for making your writing routine easy and flawless. 

Thoughts on writing abortion persuasive essay

Best Apps for Your iPhone

Essay on Ambition: How to Make it Successful?

Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect (1993)

Chapter: 1 introduction, 1 introduction.

Child maltreatment is a devastating social problem in American society. In 1990, over 2 million cases of child abuse and neglect were reported to social service agencies. In the period 1979 through 1988, about 2,000 child deaths (ages 0-17) were recorded annually as a result of abuse and neglect (McClain et al., 1993), and an additional 160,000 cases resulted in serious injuries in 1990 alone (Daro and McCurdy, 1991). However tragic and sensational, the counts of deaths and serious injuries provide limited insight into the pervasive long-term social, behavioral, and cognitive consequences of child abuse and neglect. Reports of child maltreatment alone also reveal little about the interactions among individuals, families, communities, and society that lead to such incidents.

American society has not yet recognized the complex origins or the profound consequences of child victimization. The services required for children who have been abused or neglected, including medical care, family counseling, foster care, and specialized education, are expensive and are often subsidized by governmental funds. The General Accounting Office (1991) has estimated that these services cost more than $500 million annually. Equally disturbing, research suggests that child maltreatment cases are highly related to social problems such as juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, and violence, which require additional services and severely affect the quality of life for many American families.

The Importance Of Child Maltreatment Research

The challenges of conducting research in the field of child maltreatment are enormous. Although we understand comparatively little about the causes, definitions, treatment, and prevention of child abuse and neglect, we do know enough to recognize that the origins and consequences of child victimization are not confined to the months or years in which reported incidents actually occurred. For those who survive, the long-term consequences of child maltreatment appear to be more damaging to victims and their families, and more costly for society, than the immediate or acute injuries themselves. Yet little is invested in understanding the factors that predispose, mitigate, or prevent the behavioral and social consequences of child maltreatment.

The panel has identified five key reasons why child maltreatment research should be viewed as a central nexus of more comprehensive research activity.

Research On Child Maltreatment Is Currently Undervalued And Undeveloped

Research in the field of child maltreatment studies is relatively undeveloped when compared with related fields such as child development, so-

cial welfare, and criminal violence. Although no specific theory about the causes of child abuse and neglect has been substantially replicated across studies, significant progress has been gained in the past few decades in identifying the dimensions of complex phenomena that contribute to the origins of child maltreatment.

Efforts to improve the quality of research on any group of children are dependent on the value that society assigns to the potential inherent in young lives. Although more adults are available in American society today as service providers to care for children than was the case in 1960, a disturbing number of recent reports have concluded that American children are in trouble (Fuchs and Reklis, 1992; National Commission on Children, 1991; Children's Defense Fund, 1991).

Efforts to encourage greater investments in research on children will be futile unless broader structural and social issues can be addressed within our society. Research on general problems of violence, substance addiction, social inequality, unemployment, poor education, and the treatment of children in the social services system is incomplete without attention to child maltreatment issues. Research on child maltreatment can play a key role in informing major social policy decisions concerning the services that should be made available to children, especially children in families or neighborhoods that experience significant stress and violence.

As a nation, we already have developed laws and regulatory approaches to reduce and prevent childhood injuries and deaths through actions such as restricting hot water temperatures and requiring mandatory child restraints in automobiles. These important precedents suggest how research on risk factors can provide informed guidance for social efforts to protect all of America's children in both familial and other settings.

Not only has our society invested relatively little in research on children, but we also have invested even less in research on children whose families are characterized by multiple problems, such as poverty, substance abuse, violence, welfare dependency, and child maltreatment. In part, this slower development is influenced by the complexities of research on major social problems. But the state of research on this topic could be advanced more rapidly with increased investment of funds. In the competition for scarce research funds, the underinvestment in child maltreatment research needs to be understood in the context of bias, prejudice, and the lack of a clear political constituency for children in general and disadvantaged children in particular (Children's Defense Fund, 1991; National Commission on Children, 1991). Factors such as racism, ethnic discrimination, sexism, class bias, institutional and professional jealousies, and social inequities influence the development of our national research agenda (Bell, 1992, Huston, 1991).

The evolving research agenda has also struggled with limitations im-

posed by attempting to transfer the results of sample-specific studies to diverse groups of individuals. The roles of culture, ethnic values, and economic factors pervade the development of parenting practices and family dynamics. In setting a research agenda for this field, ethnic diversity and multiple cultural perspectives are essential to improve the quality of the research program and to overcome systematic biases that have restricted its development.

Researchers must address ethical and legal issues that present unique obligations and dilemmas regarding selection of subjects, provision of services, and disclosure of data. For example, researchers who discover an undetected incident of child abuse in the course of an interview are required by state laws to disclose the identities of the victim and offender(s), if known, to appropriate child welfare officials. These mandatory reporting requirements, adopted in the interests of protecting children, may actually cause long-term damage to children by restricting the scope of research studies and discouraging scientists from developing the knowledge base necessary to guide social interventions.

Substantial efforts are now required to reach beyond the limitations of current knowledge and to gain new insights that can improve the quality of social service efforts and public policy decisions affecting the health and welfare of abused and neglected children and their families. Most important, collaborative long-term research ventures are necessary to diminish social, professional, and institutional prejudices that have restricted the development of a comprehensive knowledge base that can improve understanding of, and response to, child maltreatment.

Dimensions Of Child Abuse And Neglect

The human dimensions of child maltreatment are enormous and tragic. The U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect has called the problem of child maltreatment ''an epidemic" in American society, one that requires a critical national emergency response.

The scale and severity of child abuse and neglect has caused various public and private organizations to mobilize efforts to raise public awareness of individual cases and societal trends, to improve the reporting and tracking of child maltreatment cases, to strengthen the responses of social service systems, and to develop an effective and fair system for protecting and offering services to victims while also punishing adults who deliberately harm children or place them in danger. Over the past several decades, a growing number of state and federal funding programs, governmental reports, specialized journals, and research centers, as well as national and international societies and conferences, have examined various dimensions of the problem of child maltreatment.

The results of these efforts have been inconsistent and uneven. In addressing aspects of each new revelation of abuse or each promising new intervention, research efforts often have become diffuse, fragmented, specific, and narrow. What is lacking is a coordinated approach and a general conceptual framework that can add new depth to our understanding of child maltreatment. A coordinated approach can accommodate diverse perspectives while providing direction and guidance in establishing research priorities and synthesizing research knowledge. Organizational mechanisms are also needed to facilitate the application and integration of research on child maltreatment in related areas such as child development, family violence, substance abuse, and juvenile delinquency.

Child maltreatment is not a new problem, yet concerted service, research, and policy attention toward it is just beginning. Although isolated studies of child maltreatment appeared in the medical and sociological literature in the first half of the twentieth century, the publication of "The Battered Child Syndrome" by C. Henry Kempe and associates (1962) is generally considered the first definitive paper in the field in the United States. The efforts of Kempe and others to publicize disturbing medical experience with child abuse and neglect led to the passage of the first Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act in 1974 (P.L. 93-247). The act, which has been amended several times (most recently in 1992), established a governmental program designed to guide and consolidate national and state data collection efforts regarding reports of child abuse and neglect, conduct national surveys of household violence, and sponsor research and demonstration programs to prevent, identify, and treat child abuse and neglect.

However, the federal government's leadership role in building a research base in this area has been complicated by changes and inconsistencies in research plans and priorities, limited funding, politicized peer review, fragmentation of effort among various federal agencies, poorly scheduled proposal review deadlines, and bias introduced by competing institutional objectives. 1 The lack of comprehensive, long-term planning for a research base has resulted in a field characterized by contradictions, conflict, and fragmentation. The role of the National Center for Child Abuse and Neglect as the lead federal agency in supporting research in this field has been sharply criticized (U.S. Advisory Board, 1991). Many observers believe that the federal government lacks leadership, funding, and an effective research program for studies on child maltreatment.

The Complexity Of Child Maltreatment

Child maltreatment was originally seen in the form of "the battered child," often portrayed in terms of physical abuse. Today, four general categories of child maltreatment are generally recognized: (1) physical

abuse, (2) sexual abuse, (3) neglect, and (4) emotional maltreatment. Each category covers a range of behaviors, as discussed in Chapter 2.

These four categories have become the focus of separate studies of incidence and prevalence, etiology, prevention, consequences, and treatment, with uneven development of research within each area and poor integration of knowledge across areas. Each category has developed its own typology and framework of reference terms, revealing certain similarities (such as the importance of developmental perspectives in considering the consequences of maltreatment) but also important differences (such as the predatory behavior associated with some forms of sexual abuse that do not appear in the etiology of other forms of child maltreatment).

In addition to the category of child maltreatment, the duration, source, intensity, timing, and situational context of incidents of child victimization are now recognized as important factors in studying the origin and consequences of child maltreatment. Yet information about these factors is rarely requested or recorded by social agencies or health professionals in the process of identifying or documenting reports of child maltreatment. Furthermore, research is often weakened by variation in research definitions of child maltreatment, bias in the recruitment of research subjects, the absence of information regarding circumstances surrounding maltreatment reports, the absence of measures to assess selected variables under study, and the absence of a developmental perspective in many research studies.

The co-occurrence of different forms of child maltreatment has been examined only to a limited extent. Relatively little is known about areas of similarity and differences in terms of causes, consequences, prevention, and treatment of selected types of child abuse and neglect. Inconsistencies in definitions often preclude comparative analyses of clinical studies. For example, studies of sexual abuse have indicated wide variations in its prevalence, often as a result of differences in the types of behavior that might be included in the definition adopted by each research investigator. Emotional abuse is also a matter of controversy in some quarters, primarily because of broad variations in its definition.

Research on child maltreatment is also complicated by the fragmentation of services and responses by which our society addresses specific reports of child maltreatment. Cases may involve children who are victims or witnesses to single or repeated incidents of child abuse and neglect. Sadly, child maltreatment often involves various family members, relatives, or other individuals who reside in the homes or neighborhoods of the affected children. Adult figures may be perpetrators of offensive incidents or mediators in intervention or prevention efforts.

The importance of the social ecological framework of the child has only recently been recognized in studies of maltreatment. Responses to child abuse and neglect involve a variety of social institutions, including commu-

nities, schools, hospitals, churches, youth associations, the media, and other social structures that provide services for children. Such groups and organizations present special intervention opportunities to reduce the scale and scope of the problem of child maltreatment, but their activities are often poorly documented and uncoordinated. Finally, governmental offices at the local, state, and federal levels have legal and social obligations to develop programs and resources to address child maltreatment, and their role is critical in developing a research agenda for this field.

In the past, the research agenda has been determined predominantly by pragmatic needs in the development and delivery of treatment and prevention services rather than by theoretical paradigms, a process that facilitates short-term studies of specialized research priorities but impedes the development of a well-organized, coherent body of scientific knowledge that can contribute over time to understanding fundamental principles and issues. As a result, the research in this field has been generally viewed by the scientific community as fragmented, diffuse, decentralized, and of poor quality.

Selection of Research Studies

The research literature in the field of child maltreatment is immense—over 2000 items are included in the panel's research bibliography, a portion of which is referenced in this report. Despite this quantity of literature, researchers generally agree that the quality of research on child maltreatment is relatively weak in comparison to health and social science research studies in areas such as family systems and child development. Only a few prospective studies of child maltreatment have been undertaken, and most studies rely on the use of clinical samples (which may exclude important segments of the research population) or adult memories. Both types of samples are problematic and can produce biased results. Clinical samples may not be representative of all cases of child maltreatment. For example, we know from epidemiologic studies of disease of cases that were derived from hospital records that, unless the phenomenon of interest always comes to a service provider for treatment, there exist undetected and untreated cases in the general population that are often quite different from those who have sought treatment. Similarly, when studies rely on adult memories of childhood experiences, recall bias is always an issue. Longitudinal studies are quite rare, and some studies that are described as longitudinal actually consist of hybrid designs followed over time.

To ensure some measure of quality, the panel relied largely on studies that had been published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. More rigorous scientific criteria (such as the use of appropriate theory and methodology in the conduct of the study) were considered by the panel, but were not adopted because little of the existing work would meet such selection

criteria. Given the early stage of development of this field of research, the panel believes that even weak studies contain some useful information, especially when they suggest clinical insights, a new perspective, or a point of departure from commonly held assumptions. Thus, the report draws out issues based on clinical studies or studies that lack sufficient control samples, but the panel refrains from drawing inferences based on this literature.

The panel believes that future research reviews of the child maltreatment literature would benefit from the identification of explicit criteria that could guide the selection of exemplary research studies, such as the following:

For the most part, only a few studies will score well in each of the above categories. It becomes problematic, therefore, to rate the value of studies which may score high in one category but not in others.

The panel has relied primarily on studies conducted in the past decade, since earlier research work may not meet contemporary standards of methodological rigor. However, citations to earlier studies are included in this report where they are thought to be particularly useful and when research investigators provided careful assessments and analysis of issues such as definition, interrelationships of various types of abuse, and the social context of child maltreatment.

A Comparison With Other Fields of Family and Child Research

A comparison with the field of studies on family functioning may illustrate another point about the status of the studies on child maltreatment. The literature on normal family functioning or socialization effects differs in many respects from the literature on child abuse and neglect. Family sociology research has a coherent body of literature and reasonable consensus about what constitutes high-quality parenting in middle-class, predominantly White populations. Family functioning studies have focused predominantly on large, nonclinical populations, exploring styles of parenting and parenting practices that generate different kinds and levels of competence, mental health, and character in children. Studies of family functioning have tended to follow cohorts of subjects over long periods to identify the effects of variations in childrearing practices and patterns on children's

competence and adjustment that are not a function of social class and circumstances.

By contrast, the vast and burgeoning literature on child abuse and neglect is applied research concerned largely with the adverse effects of personal and social pathology on children. The research is often derived from very small samples selected by clinicians and case workers. Research is generally cross-sectional, and almost without exception the samples use impoverished families characterized by multiple problems, including substance abuse, unemployment, transient housing, and so forth. Until recently, researchers demonstrated little regard for incorporating appropriate ethnic and cultural variables in comparison and control groups. In the past decade, significant improvements have occurred in the development of child maltreatment research, but key problems remain in the area of definitions, study designs, and the use of instrumentation.

As the nature of research on child abuse and neglect has evolved over time, scientists and practitioners have likewise changed. The psychopathologic model of child maltreatment has been expanded to include models that stress the interactions of individual, family, neighborhood, and larger social systems. The role of ethnic and cultural issues are acquiring an emerging importance in formulating parent-child and family-community relationships. Earlier simplistic conceptionalizations of perpetrator-victim relationships are evolving into multiple-focus research projects that examine antecedents in family histories, current situational relationships, ecological and neighborhood issues, and interactional qualities of relationships between parent-child and offender-victim. In addition, emphases in treatment, social service, and legal programs combine aspects of both law enforcement and therapy, reflecting an international trend away from punishment, toward assistance, for families in trouble.

Charge To The Panel

The commissioner of the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requested that the National Academy of Sciences convene a study panel to undertake a comprehensive examination of the theoretical and pragmatic research needs in the area of child maltreatment. The Panel on Research on Child Abuse and Neglect was asked specifically to:

The report resulting from this study provides recommendations for allocating existing research funds and also suggests funding mechanisms and topic areas to which new resources could be allocated or enhanced resources could be redirected. By focusing this report on research priorities and the needs of the research community, the panel's efforts were distinguished from related activities, such as the reports of the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, which concentrate on the policy issues in the field of child maltreatment.

The request for recommendations for research priorities recognizes that existing studies on child maltreatment require careful evaluation to improve the evolution of the field and to build appropriate levels of human and financial resources for these complex research problems. Through this review, the panel has examined the strengths and weaknesses of past research and identified areas of knowledge that represent the greatest promise for advancing understanding of, and dealing more effectively with, the problem of child maltreatment.

In conducting this review, the panel has recognized the special status of studies of child maltreatment. The experience of child abuse or neglect from any perspective, including victim, perpetrator, professional, or witness, elicits strong emotions that may distort the design, interpretation, or support of empirical studies. The role of the media in dramatizing selected cases of child maltreatment has increased public awareness, but it has also produced a climate in which scientific objectivity may be sacrificed in the name of urgency or humane service. Many concerned citizens, legislators, child advocates, and others think we already know enough to address the root causes of child maltreatment. Critical evaluations of treatment and prevention services are not supported due to both a lack of funding and a lack of appreciation for the role that scientific analysis can play in improving the quality of existing services and identifying new opportunities for interventions. The existing research base is small in volume and spread over a wide variety of topics. The contrast between the importance of the problem and the difficulty of approaching it has encouraged the panel to proceed carefully, thoroughly distinguishing suppositions from facts when they appear.

Research on child maltreatment is at a crossroads—we are now in a position to merge this research field with others to incorporate multiple perspectives, broaden research samples, and focus on fundamental issues that have the potential to strengthen, reform, or replace existing public policy and social programs. We have arrived at a point where we can

recognize the complex interplay of forces in the origins and consequences of child abuse and neglect. We also recognize the limitations of our knowledge about the effects of different forms of social interventions (e.g., home visitations, foster care, family treatment programs) for changing the developmental pathways of abuse victims and their families.

The Importance Of A Child-Oriented Framework

The field of child maltreatment studies has often divided research into the types of child maltreatment under consideration (such as physical and sexual abuse, child neglect, and emotional maltreatment). Within each category, researchers and practitioners have examined underlying causes or etiology, consequences, forms of treatment or other interventions, and prevention programs. Each category has developed its own typology and framework of reference terms, and researchers within each category often publish in separate journals and attend separate professional meetings.

Over a decade ago, the National Research Council Committee on Child Development Research and Public Policy published a report titled Services for Children: An Agenda for Research (1981). Commenting on the development of various government services for children, the report noted that observations of children's needs were increasingly distorted by the "unmanageably complex, expensive, and confusing" categorical service structure that had produced fragmented and sometimes contradictory programs to address child health and nutrition requirements (p. 15-16). The committee concluded that the actual experiences of children and their families in different segments of society and the conditions of their homes, neighborhoods, and communities needed more systematic study. The report further noted that we need to learn more about who are the important people in children's lives, including parents, siblings, extended family, friends, and caretakers outside the family, and what these people do for children, when, and where.

These same conclusions can be applied to studies of child maltreatment. Our panel considered, but did not endorse, a framework that would emphasize differences in the categories of child abuse or neglect. We also considered a framework that would highlight differences in the current system of detecting, investigating, or responding to child maltreatment. In contrast to conceptualizing this report in terms of categories of maltreatment or responses of the social system to child maltreatment, the panel presents a child-oriented research agenda that emphasizes the importance of knowing more about the backgrounds and experiences of developing children and their families, within a broader social context that includes their friends, neighborhoods, and communities. This framework stresses the importance of knowing more about the qualitative differences between children who suffer episodic experiences of abuse or neglect and those for whom mal-

treatment is a chronic part of their lives. And this approach highlights the need to know more about circumstances that affect the consequences, and therefore the treatment, of child maltreatment, especially circumstances that may be affected by family, cultural, or ethnic factors that often remain hidden in small, isolated studies.

An Ecological Developmental Perspective

The panel has adopted an ecological developmental perspective to examine factors in the child, family, or society that can exacerbate or mitigate the incidence and destructive consequences of child maltreatment. In the panel's view, this perspective reflects the understanding that development is a process involving transactions between the growing child and the social environment or ecology in which development takes place. Positive and negative factors merit attention in shaping a research agenda on child maltreatment. We have adopted a perspective that recognizes that dysfunctional families are often part of a dysfunctional environment.

The relevance of child maltreatment research to child development studies and other research fields is only now being examined. New methodologies and new theories of child maltreatment that incorporate a developmental perspective can provide opportunities for researchers to consider the interaction of multiple factors, rather than focusing on single causes or short-term effects. What is required is the mobilization of new structures of support and resources to concentrate research efforts on significant areas that offer the greatest promise of improving our understanding of, and our responses to, child abuse and neglect.

Our report extends beyond what is, to what could be, in a society that fosters healthy development in children and families. We cannot simply build a research agenda for the existing social system; we need to develop one that independently challenges the system to adapt to new perspectives, new insights, and new discoveries.

The fundamental theme of the report is the recognition that research efforts to address child maltreatment should be enhanced and incorporated into a long-term plan to improve the quality of children's lives and the lives of their families. By placing maltreatment within the framework of healthy development, for example, we can identify unique sources of intervention for infants, preschool children, school-age children, and adolescents.

Each stage of development presents challenges that must be resolved in order for a child to achieve productive forms of thinking, perceiving, and behaving as an adult. The special needs of a newborn infant significantly differ from those of a toddler or preschool child. Children in the early years of elementary school have different skills and distinct experiential levels from those of preadolescent years. Adolescent boys and girls demon-

strate a range of awkward and exploratory behaviors as they acquire basic social skills necessary to move forward into adult life. Most important, developmental research has identified the significant influences of family, schools, peers, neighborhoods, and the broader society in supporting or constricting child development.

Understanding the phenomenon of child abuse and neglect within a developmental perspective poses special challenges. As noted earlier, research literature on child abuse and neglect is generally organized by the category or type of maltreatment; integrated efforts have not yet been achieved. For example, research has not yet compared and contrasted the causes of physical and sexual abuse of a preschool child or the differences between emotional maltreatment of toddlers and adolescents, although all these examples fall within the domain of child maltreatment. A broader conceptual framework for research will elicit data that can facilitate such comparative analyses.

By placing research in the framework of factors that foster healthy development, the ecological developmental perspective can enhance understanding of the research agenda for child abuse and neglect. The developmental perspective can improve the quality of treatment and prevention programs, which often focus on particular groups, such as young mothers who demonstrate risk factors for abuse of newborns, or sexual offenders who molest children. There has been little effort to cut across the categorical lines established within these studies to understand points of convergence or divergence in studies on child abuse and neglect.

The ecological developmental perspective can also improve our understanding of the consequences of child abuse and neglect, which may occur with increased or diminished intensity over a developmental cycle, or in different settings such as the family or the school. Initial effects may be easily identified and addressed if the abuse is detected early in the child's development, and medical and psychological services are available for the victim and the family. Undetected incidents, or childhood experiences discovered later in adult life, require different forms of treatment and intervention. In many cases, incidents of abuse and neglect may go undetected and unreported, yet the child victim may display aggression, delinquency, substance addiction, or other problem behaviors that stimulate responses within the social system.

Finally, an ecological developmental perspective can enhance intervention and prevention programs by identifying different requirements and potential effects for different age groups. Children at separate stages of their developmental cycle have special coping mechanisms that present barriers to—and opportunities for—the treatment and prevention of child abuse and neglect. Intervention programs need to consider the extent to which children may have already experienced some form of maltreatment in order to

evaluate successful outcomes. In addition, the perspective facilitates evaluation of which settings are the most promising locus for interventions.

Previous Reports

A series of national reports associated with the health and welfare of children have been published in the past decade, many of which have identified the issue of child abuse and neglect as one that deserves sustained attention and creative programmatic solutions. In their 1991 report, Beyond Rhetoric , the National Commission on Children noted that the fragmentation of social services has resulted in the nation's children being served on the basis of their most obvious condition or problem rather than being served on the basis of multiple needs. Although the needs of these children are often the same and are often broader than the mission of any single agency emotionally disturbed children are often served by the mental health system, delinquent children by the juvenile justice system, and abused or neglected children by the protective services system (National Commission on Children, 1991). In their report, the commission called for the protection of abused and neglected children through more comprehensive child protective services, with a strong emphasis on efforts to keep children with their families or to provide permanent placement for those removed from their homes.

In setting health goals for the year 2000, the Public Health Service recognized the problem of child maltreatment and recommended improvements in reporting and diagnostic services, and prevention and educational interventions (U.S. Public Health Service, 1990). For example, the report, Health People 2000 , described the four types of child maltreatment and recommended that the rising incidence (identified as 25.2 per 1,000 in 1986) should be reversed to less than 25.2 in the year 2000. These public health targets are stated as reversing increasing trends rather than achieving specific reductions because of difficulties in obtaining valid and reliable measures of child maltreatment. The report also included recommendations to expand the implementation of state level review systems for unexplained child deaths, and to increase the number of states in which at least 50 percent of children who are victims of physical or sexual abuse receive appropriate treatment and follow-up evaluations as a means of breaking the intergenerational cycle of abuse.

The U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect issued reports in 1990 and 1991 which include national policy and research recommendations. The 1991 report presented a range of research options for action, highlighting the following priorities (U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1991:110-113):

This report differs from those described above because its primary focus is on establishing a research agenda for the field of studies on child abuse and neglect. In contrast to the mandate of the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, the panel was not asked to prepare policy recommendations for federal and state governments in developing child maltreatment legislation and programs. The panel is clearly aware of the need for services for abused and neglected children and of the difficult policy issues that must be considered by the Congress, the federal government, the states, and municipal governments in responding to the distress of children and families in crisis. The charge to this panel was to design a research agenda that would foster the development of scientific knowledge that would provide fundamental insights into the causes, identification, incidence, consequences, treatment, and prevention of child maltreatment. This knowledge can enable public and private officials to execute their responsibilities more effectively, more equitably, and more compassionately and empower families and communities to resolve their problems and conflicts in a manner that strengthens their internal resources and reduces the need for external interventions.

Report Overview

Early studies on child abuse and neglect evolved from a medical or pathogenic model, and research focused on specific contributing factors or causal sources within the individual offender to be discovered, addressed, and prevented. With the development of research on child maltreatment over the past several decades, however, the complexity of the phenomena encompassed by the terms child abuse and neglect or child maltreatment has become apparent. Clinical studies that began with small sample sizes and weak methodological designs have gradually evolved into larger and longer-term projects with hundreds of research subjects and sound instrumentation.

Although the pathogenic model remains popular among the general public in explaining the sources of child maltreatment, it is limited by its primary focus on risk and protective factors within the individual. Research investigators now recognize that individual behaviors are often influenced by factors in the family, community, and society as a whole. Elements from these systems are now being integrated into more complex theories that analyze the roles of interacting risk and protective factors to explain and understand the phenomena associated with child maltreatment.

In the past, research on child abuse and neglect has developed within a categorical framework that classifies the research by the type of maltreatment typically as reported in administrative records. Although the quality of research within different categories of child abuse and neglect is uneven and problems of definitions, data collection, and study design continue to characterize much research in this field, the panel concluded that enough progress has been achieved to integrate the four categories of maltreatment into a child-oriented framework that could analyze the similarities and differences of research findings. Rather than encouraging the continuation of a categorical approach that would separate research on physical or sexual abuse, for example, the panel sought to develop for research sponsors and the research community a set of priorities that would foster the integration of scientific findings, encourage the development of comparative analyses, and also distinguish key research themes in such areas as identification, incidence, etiology, prevention, consequences, and treatment. This approach recognizes the need for the construction of collaborative, long-term efforts between public and private research sponsors and research investigators to strengthen the knowledge base, to integrate studies that have evolved for different types of child maltreatment, and eventually to reduce the problem of child maltreatment. This approach also highlights the connections that need to be made between research on the causes and the prevention of child maltreatment, for the more we learn about the origins of child abuse and neglect, the more effective we can be in seeking to prevent it. In the same manner, the report emphasises the connections that need to be made between research on the consequences and treatment of child maltreatment, for knowledge about the effects of child abuse and neglect can guide the development of interventions to address these effects.

In constructing this report, the panel has considered eight broad areas: Identification and definitions of child abuse and neglect (Chapter 2) Incidence: The scope of the problem (Chapter 3) Etiology of child maltreatment (Chapter 4) Prevention of child maltreatment (Chapter 5) Consequences of child maltreatment (Chapter 6) Treatment of child maltreatment (Chapter 7)

Human resources, instrumentation, and research infrastructure (Chapter 8) Ethical and legal issue in child maltreatment research (Chapter 9)

Each chapter includes key research recommendations within the topic under review. The final chapter of the report (Chapter 10) establishes a framework of research priorities derived by the panel from these recommendations. The four main categories identified within this framework—research on the nature and scope of child maltreatment; research on the origins and consequences of child maltreatment; research on the strengths and limitations of existing interventions; and the need for a science policy for child maltreatment research—provide the priorities that the panel has selected as the most important to address in the decade ahead.

1. The panel received an anecdotal report, for example, that one federal research agency systematically changed titles of its research awards over a decade ago, replacing phrases such as child abuse with references to maternal and child health care, after political sensitivities developed regarding the appropriateness of its research program in this area.

Bell, D.A. 1992 Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism . New York: Basic Books.

Children's Defense Fund 1991 The State of America's Children . Washington, DC: The Children's Defense Fund.

Daro, D. 1988 Confronting Child Abuse: Research for Effective Program Design . New York: The Free Press, Macmillan. Cited in the General Accounting Office, 1992. Child Abuse: Prevention Programs Need Greater Emphasis. GAO/HRD-92-99.

Daro, D., and K. McCurdy 1991 Current Trends in Child Abuse Reporting and Fatalities: The Results of the 1990 Annual Fifty State Survey . Chicago: National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse.

Fuchs, V.R., and D.M. Reklis 1992 America's children: Economic perspectives and policy options. Science 255:41-46.

General Accounting Office 1991 Child Abuse Prevention: Status of the Challenge Grant Program . May. GAO:HRD91-95. Washington, DC.

Huston, A.C., ed. 1991 Children in Poverty: Child Development and Public Policy . New York: Cambridge University Press.

Kempe, C.H., F.N. Silverman, B. Steele, W. Droegemueller, and H.R. Silver 1962 The battered child syndrome. Journal of the American Medical Association 181(1): 17-24.

McClain, P.W., J.J. Sacks, R.G. Froehlke, and B.G. Ewigman 1993 Estimates of fatal child abuse and neglect, United States, 1979 through 1988. Pediatrics 91(2):338-343.

National Commission on Children 1991 Beyond Rhetoric: A New American Agenda for Children and Families . Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

National Research Council 1981 Services for Children: An Agenda for Research . Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect 1990 Child Abuse and Neglect: Critical First Steps in Response to a National Emergency . August. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. August. 1991 Creating Caring Communities . September. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

U.S. Public Health Service 1990 Violent and abusive behavior. Pp. 226-247 (Chapter 7) in Healthy People 2000 Report . Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The tragedy of child abuse and neglect is in the forefront of public attention. Yet, without a conceptual framework, research in this area has been highly fragmented. Understanding the broad dimensions of this crisis has suffered as a result.

This new volume provides a comprehensive, integrated, child-oriented research agenda for the nation. The committee presents an overview of three major areas:

• Definitions and scope —exploring standardized classifications, analysis of incidence and prevalence trends, and more.
• Etiology, consequences, treatment, and prevention —analyzing relationships between cause and effect, reviewing prevention research with a unique systems approach, looking at short- and long-term consequences of abuse, and evaluating interventions.
• Infrastructure and ethics —including a review of current research efforts, ways to strengthen human resources and research tools, and guidance on sensitive ethical and legal issues.

This volume will be useful to organizations involved in research, social service agencies, child advocacy groups, and researchers.

READ FREE ONLINE

Welcome to OpenBook!

You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

Show this book's table of contents , where you can jump to any chapter by name.

...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

Switch between the Original Pages , where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter .

Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

View our suggested citation for this chapter.

Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

Get Email Updates

Do you enjoy reading reports from the Academies online for free ? Sign up for email notifications and we'll let you know about new publications in your areas of interest when they're released.

Child Abuse: History and Causes Essay

Works cited.

“Abuse” is a popular word these days. The contemporary culture contains thousands of books, films, songs, photographs, and paintings raising awareness of the abuse of men, women, children and animals. Yet, nothing speaks louder than facts. Statistically, since 2003 approximately four to six thousands of cases of child abuse per year had been registered by the police in Wales and England.

The period from 2013 to 2014 turned out to be a peak of this activity as the number of registered child abuse cases over that time reached nearly eight thousand (Number of police recorded ‘cruelty to children/young persons’ in England and Wales from 2002/03 to 2013/14* par. 1). The purpose of this paper is to explore the history, and causes of child abuse as well as the legislation implemented to address its cases. The paper reveals shocking examples of child abuse from earlier times as well as present days and explores the ways the modern society employs to deal with this appalling practice that assumingly has been going on ever since the beginning of time.

Child abuse has a very long history. For generations, cruelty towards children had been viewed as an appropriate way to discipline them and teach valuable lessons. Uneven power relationships between adults and children have been practiced for centuries. The laws designed to protect children did not exist in the earlier society simply because child abuse had never been viewed as an issue. In fact, children were considered as parts of property of their fathers, which seems like a natural belief for a patriarchal society of the past.

During the Victorian Era the heavy exploitation of child labor had been a normal practice. Children from the poor families would start to be viewed as suppliers at the age of seven or eight. The occupations young children performed during the Victorian times included coal mining, pottery, farming, laundry, matchmaking, and sales. Children also were employed at textile mills, ship yards, and rail stations. They worked as servants, rat catchers, chimney sweepers, and prostitutes. Average work shifts of children could last twelve or even eighteen hours. It goes without saying that hard physical labor and absence of appropriate care resulted in multiple health problems and injuries, some of which led to early death of young workers.

The first laws regarding cruelty and abuse appeared in England after 1866 and initially were directed at the protection of animals, but eventually started to include children. In the late 1800s the British crown began to enforce the principle called parens patriae, which obliged the state to care about the weak and vulnerable groups of population including children. Since that time the attitude towards the issue of child abuse has been changing year after year in favour of child protection.

Today, the society is wiser and it practices upstream approach concerning the issue of child abuse. Along with handling its consequences, the experts of various fields are trying to identify and address its causes. The contemporary sociologists, psychologists and anthropologists are aware of a number of causes that compose the basis for child abuse.

Among the general causes that may lead people to their breaking point are emotional immaturity, psychological and financial issues, unrealistic expectations, depression, lack of experience and knowledge concerning parenting, and mental disorders. Normally, an abusive person has a combination of these risk factors, but some causes are much more popular than others.

The main factors leading to child abuse are drugs and domestic violence. A household where violent attitudes frequently occur between the spouses is an ultimate risk place for a child. Often, the outbreaks of rage and aggression in adults occur due to a number of frustrating factors such as unemployment, financial crisis, and difficult living conditions. When such outbreaks are heated up by an intoxication they tend to go out of control and affect everyone around. Young children are especially vulnerable in such situations.

One of the worst child abuse cases ever registered in Britain resulted in life imprisonment for a couple who starved and beat a young boy to death. The boy’s mother Magdelena Luczak aged 27 and her boyfriend Marius Krezolek aged 34 were arrested for systematic child abuse in a form of starving and physical violence (Couple jailed for life in one of Britain’s worst child abuse cases par. 1).

The adults captured in 2013 had been torturing the boy since 2011 locking him in a room without windows, withdrawing food from him and beating him up severely. After the situation turned fatal, the couple failed to report it within 33 hours. Both Madgalena and Marius were heavy alcohol and drug abusers with criminal background and inclination to violence. Unfortunately, a number of couples matching this description is large not only in Britain but all around the world, which puts their children in need for legal protection.

In legislation child abuse includes sexual, physical and emotional aspects. A child abuser is a parent or caretaker who fails to meet the most basic needs of a child including the need for food, home, and care adequate for the child’s age, who ignores the child’s need for health care, who cannot provide education a child requires, or who deprives a child of love and emotional support (Report child abuse par. 1).

One of the frequently discussed contemporary legal aspects of child abuse is a policy concerning obligatory report of a suspected abuse in the UK. Such policy is employed in the United States, but the British legislators have been reluctant about this issue. The abovementioned case of a young boy starved to death by his own mother and her boyfriend is a demonstration of the importance of mandatory report policy as the boy continued going to school while being starved and abused, but teachers, along with neighbors and friends of the boy failed to inform the police or child protection services about the problem.

The argument against the implementation of mandatory child abuse report is the fact that it may lead to fewer children receiving protection. The Home Secretary Theresa May is convinced that once such policy is implemented, organisations such as hospitals, schools and kindergartens would start feeling pressured to report all kinds of suspicions and file multiple false reports leading to confusion of law enforcement (Hope par. 8).

To conclude, Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) reports that in 2013 they have processed 18887 reports concerning suspected child abuse, provided protection to 790 children, sent out 2866 overseas reports about individuals suspected to be involved in child abuse, and captured 192 suspects (Annual Review 2012-2013 & Centre Plan 2013-2014 7).

Child abuse is not a new issue for our society, it has existed for centuries. Today, we are aware of the problem, its causes and outcomes. Hundreds of professionals are focused on identification and elimination of child abuse in the UK. A number of services are determined to work with individuals assisting the government in abuse prevention and child protection. Reporting suspected abuse is not mandatory, yet it is a moral obligation for everyone because picking up a phone and informing the professionals may save a life of a child.

Annual Review 2012-2013 & Centre Plan 2013-2014. CEOP . 2014. Web.

Couple jailed for life in one of Britain’s worst child abuse cases . ABC . 2013. Web.

Hope, Christopher. Mandatory reporting of child abuse could put more children at risk, warns Theresa May. 2014. Web.

Number of police recorded ‘cruelty to children/young persons’ in England and Wales from 2002/03 to 2013/14*. The Statistics Portal . 2014. Web.

Report child abuse . GOV.UK . 2014. Web.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, March 26). Child Abuse: History and Causes. https://ivypanda.com/essays/child-abuse-history-and-causes/

"Child Abuse: History and Causes." IvyPanda , 26 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/child-abuse-history-and-causes/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Child Abuse: History and Causes'. 26 March.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Child Abuse: History and Causes." March 26, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/child-abuse-history-and-causes/.

1. IvyPanda . "Child Abuse: History and Causes." March 26, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/child-abuse-history-and-causes/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Child Abuse: History and Causes." March 26, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/child-abuse-history-and-causes/.

• Female Athletes Starved by Male Coaches
• Fast-Laning Trend: Online Platform and Mobile Applications
• American History During World War Two
• Purpose of literature; what can literature do?
• The Catastrophe to Come: When the Society Falls Apart. A
• Slavery History: Letters Analysis
• Catch a Fire by Phillip Noyce
• Music Industry: Apple's iTunes and Profitability
• Middle-Eastern and African Terrorist Movements
• Causes and Effects of Animal Cruelty
• Volunteering Portfolio: Methodist Church of Britain
• Germany’s Philosophy and Politics of Globalization
• Down Syndrome in the UAE: Attitude of Society and Family
• Are Millennials Too Big to Fail? by Lynda Bekore
• Income Inequality and Education Opportunities

Essay on Child Abuse

Students are often asked to write an essay on Child Abuse in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Child Abuse

Understanding child abuse.

Child abuse refers to harmful actions against children. It can be physical, emotional, or sexual in nature. It’s a serious issue that affects many children worldwide.

Types of Child Abuse

Physical abuse involves causing physical harm. Emotional abuse includes actions that harm a child’s mental well-being. Sexual abuse involves sexual exploitation.

The Impact of Child Abuse

Child abuse can lead to serious problems, like mental health issues and difficulty in social interactions. It’s important to protect children from such harm.

Preventing Child Abuse

Everyone can help prevent child abuse. If you see signs of abuse, it’s crucial to report it to authorities. Education and awareness are key.

Also check:

• Speech on Child Abuse

250 Words Essay on Child Abuse

Introduction.

Child abuse, a grave societal issue, is an act that inflicts physical, sexual, or emotional harm or neglect upon children. This pervasive problem transcends geographical boundaries, socio-economic statuses, and cultures, having long-term detrimental effects on the individual’s life and society.

Child abuse manifests in various forms: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. Physical abuse involves deliberate actions causing injuries or harm to a child, while sexual abuse pertains to any sexual activity involving a child. Emotional abuse is the continual emotional mistreatment, and neglect is the consistent failure to meet a child’s basic needs.

Consequences of Child Abuse

The impact of child abuse is profound and long-lasting. Victims often experience cognitive difficulties, emotional instability, and behavioral issues. The psychological trauma can lead to mental health disorders, substance abuse, and even suicide in severe cases.

Prevention and Intervention

Preventing child abuse requires collective societal effort. It involves improving parenting skills, providing family support, and increasing public awareness. Intervention strategies include therapy, counseling, and legal action. Schools and communities play a crucial role in identifying and reporting suspected abuse.

In conclusion, child abuse is a pressing issue that requires immediate attention. Understanding its forms and consequences is the first step towards prevention. Society’s collective effort is crucial in creating a safe environment for children, thus ensuring their healthy development and well-being.

500 Words Essay on Child Abuse

Introduction to child abuse.

Child abuse, a critical social issue, encompasses a wide range of harmful actions towards children, including physical, sexual, and emotional maltreatment, as well as neglect. It is a global concern that transcends cultural, social, and economic boundaries, affecting millions of children worldwide.

The Different Forms of Child Abuse

Child abuse manifests in various forms, each with its profound impact on a child’s mental and physical development. Physical abuse involves the deliberate use of force against a child, leading to potential bodily harm. Sexual abuse encompasses any sexual activity involving a child, where they are incapable of giving informed consent. Emotional abuse involves persistent negative behavior towards a child, such as belittling, humiliation, or rejection. Lastly, neglect is the failure to provide for a child’s basic needs, including food, shelter, education, and medical care.

Impact of Child Abuse

Child abuse has devastating consequences on the victims, their families, and society at large. Abused children often suffer from physical injuries, psychological disorders, and impaired social development. They may experience difficulties in school, struggle with interpersonal relationships, and are at a higher risk of developing mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Moreover, the cycle of abuse often continues into adulthood, with victims more likely to become perpetrators themselves.

The Role of Society and Institutions

Society and institutions play a crucial role in preventing child abuse and mitigating its effects. Schools, healthcare providers, and social services should be equipped with the necessary resources to identify and respond to cases of child abuse. Public awareness campaigns can help educate the community about the signs of abuse and how to report suspected cases. Laws and policies should also be in place to protect children, punish perpetrators, and provide support for victims.

Conclusion: Towards a Safer Future for Children

Child abuse is a pervasive issue that demands urgent attention and action. It is essential to foster a culture of respect and protection for children’s rights, where every child can grow up in a safe and nurturing environment. This involves a collective effort from individuals, communities, and governments to recognize, address, and prevent child abuse. By doing so, we can break the cycle of abuse and pave the way for a safer, healthier future for our children.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Chhattisgarh
• Essay on Chhath Puja
• Essay on Chetan Bhagat

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Child Abuse Essay Example

Many parents are not aware of the signs of child abuse. This is largely due to the fact that they do not want to believe it could happen or they are in denial. Abuse can manifest itself as an extreme lack of empathy, which is also known as coldness. There are other signs to look for including a decline in school performance, mood swings, and aggressive behavior. If you suspect your child has been abused there are several resources available to help find out if it truly happened and get them to help if necessary.

• Thesis Statement
• Introduction

Essay Example On Child Abuse

Thesis Statement Every kind of child abuse is harmful to better cognitive development which can create multiple social issues. Introduction Child abuse is an umbrella term that covers so many aspects. It is not just limited up to torturing or dismantling a child on a physical basis but mental and sexual harassment is also a part of it. Sometimes in many cases, parents are found to be guilty of such major problems in society. The goal of different types of child abuse also differs in every situation. For instance, parents abusing their child by forcing him to work at minor age are backed by the financial crisis of the family. Similarly, mental torture could be given to a child for performing below the par in his studies. All these pressures restrict the proper growth of children which leads to many crises in society. Get Non-Plagiarized Custom Essay on Child Abuse in USA Order Now Main Body Child abuse is rising with increasing poverty and competition among people. To become the survivor of this cut-throat competition, it becomes a necessity for people to push their minor children into the workforce. Here are some important points that will highlight the issue of child abuse in a deeper sense. Who is Responsible for Child Abuse? We cannot blame a single person for the problem of child abuse. As discussed above child abuse could be described in multiple dimensions. A person who abuses a child sexually cannot be justified on any grounds but pushing children to work at a minor age can be justified with poverty. Here are some forces that are responsible for child abuse. Society –  Multiple social customs based on the cast restrict children to take admission to the school. These customs are mainly gendered biased for girls and transgender. As a result of which these children have to work at a very low age. Social Institutions –  Social institutions like a police departments, education centers are also biased towards the punishment of culprits who are responsible for child abuse and giving admission to students of lower strata respectively. Class System –  Class system is another big reason for child abuse in society due to different rights for the people of different classes. Poverty –  Poverty is the most challenging reason that is difficult to cope up with for child abuse. Parents are sending their children and wards to labor at a very small age due to poverty. These were the main reasons behind child abuse that must be uprooted from society. We cannot imagine a society that is ideal and does not involve child abuse at any point without mitigating the issue of poverty in it. How to Deter the Issue of Child Abuse Child abuse is a problem that needs to be addressed very carefully. This is the high time when professionals and intelligentsia of society should take some major steps to reduce and eradicate this problem. Here are some suggestions that could be used for handling the problem of child abuse by people. Equal Distribution of Economic Resources – The economic resources of a region or country must be distributed evenly among the citizens. This is very important to maintain equality among people of different communities. When there will be no crisis for money the issue of child abuse could be managed at some level. No Injustice on the Grounds of Cast and Gender –  By reducing the injustice on the grounds of cast and gender we can send all the children to school easily. Thus child labor would no longer exist in society. Awareness about Child Abuse in the Society –  Child abuse awareness campaign in the different parts of the world is also important. Parents are not mindful of the fact many times that their children are exploited on sexual as well as physical grounds by the rich when. Often poor children are taken away by the rich businessmen and merchants in the name of the job. But the wages paid to these children are negligible as compared to the work they have to do. When parents would be aware of this fact they will not send the children for manual labor. Conclusion We should work together in a union to fight against the problem of child abuse. Children are the main pillar of any nation for economic and social growth. If they will be harassed and given major traumas in their very childhood, it can disturb society with their growth. Intelligentsia of society should discuss some relevant points to deter with this serious problem effectively. Only then a bright and stable future of a country or nation could be presumed by the citizens. Buy Customized Essay on Child Abuse At Cheapest Price Order Now

Get Affordable Essay Writing Service At Students Assignment Help

If you still have some doubts in your mind and need someone to help you, ask Students Assignment Help. You will be provided with the best Essay Writing Help through child abuse essay examples . Students can also avail other types of essays like internet marketing and business plan from Students Assignment Help .

The best part of taking the help from Students Assignment Help for your essays is the time of delivery. Delayed essays are never going to arrive at your door from us, as we are very particular about the deadlines. So make sure that you are hiring USA Based Experts in your essay assignments on child abuse.

Explore More Relevant Posts

• Nike Advertisement Analysis Essay Sample
• Mechanical Engineer Essay Example
• Reflective Essay on Teamwork
• Career Goals Essay Example
• Importance of Family Essay Example
• Causes of Teenage Depression Essay Sample
• Red Box Competitors Essay Sample
• Deontology Essay Example
• Biomedical Model of Health Essay Sample-Strengths and Weaknesses
• Effects Of Discrimination Essay Sample
• Meaning of Freedom Essay Example
• Women’s Rights Essay Sample
• Employment & Labor Law USA Essay Example
• Sonny’s Blues Essay Sample
• COVID 19 (Corona Virus) Essay Sample
• Why Do You Want To Be A Nurse Essay Example
• Family Planning Essay Sample
• Internet Boon or Bane Essay Example
• Does Access to Condoms Prevent Teen Pregnancy Essay Sample
• Disadvantage of Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) Essay Sample
• Essay Sample On Zika Virus
• Wonder Woman Essay Sample
• Teenage Suicide Essay Sample
• Primary Socialization Essay Sample In USA
• Role Of Physics In Daily Life Essay Sample
• Are Law Enforcement Cameras An Invasion of Privacy Essay Sample
• Why Guns Should Not Be Banned
• Neolithic Revolution Essay Sample
• Home Schooling Essay Sample
• Cosmetology Essay Sample
• Sale Promotion Techniques Sample Essay
• How Democratic Was Andrew Jackson Essay Sample
• Baby Boomers Essay Sample
• Veterans Day Essay Sample
• Why Did Japan Attack Pearl Harbor Essay Sample
• Component Of Criminal Justice System In USA Essay Sample
• Self Introduction Essay Example
• Divorce Argumentative Essay Sample
• Bullying Essay Sample
• Public, Policy And Politics In USA Essay Sample

Get Free Assignment Quote

Enter Discount Code If You Have, Else Leave Blank

It’s Time to End Statute of Limitations Laws for Child Sex Abuse Victims. For Good.

I n 2019, New York passed the Child Victims Act, a law that changed the statute of limitations for victims of childhood sexual abuse, extending the civil limit age from 23 to 55. For victims who had already aged out of these timeframes, the law permitted a one-year lookback window, temporarily eliminating the statute of limitations to give child victims another chance at civil justice, becoming active in August of 2019 and initially supposed to end in August of 2020.

The reason the lookback window was created was because of the detrimental effects of childhood sexual abuse made reporting the crime difficult. If it ever even happened, the reporting was unlikely to occur so soon after turning 18. But the small time frame also favored certain types of child victims. With only a year, law firms preferred class-action cases, and victims had to make rash, untested decisions. If your case deviated at all from the norm, oftentimes, you were forced to seek other methods for justice. Otherwise you would be left permanently without justice. I was one such victim.

After I turned 23, I went to the police in an attempt to get justice for getting trafficked when I was a teenager growing up in New York. I had been contacted on Myspace when I was 14 by a violent 18-year-old who would drug and rape me. He would also find older men on Craigslist to do the same to me, and they would pay him in cash or drugs. This lasted until I was 17 when I started to look too old and would fight back. I was afraid of that man, unable to understand what had happened to me, and tried to kill myself when I was 17. Then, I moved to San Diego when I turned 18, oscillating between days of sunny beaches and night terrors, once slashing my wrists after a period of nightmares. Finally, I had a major breakdown when I was 22 in 2014, and I couldn’t keep secret what happened to me any longer.

Following the breakdown, I called the police in my childhood home and reported what had happened to me nearly a decade before. The information was relayed to a detective, and I drove to the police station in my Honda Element, trembling as I told the detective what I remembered. It had been six years since the last time I had been trafficked, and still I could really only tell the detective about a few isolated details without needing to stop. The problem was that the details I gave outlined crimes for which I was no longer eligible for justice. I was too old. I had been a child victim. The detective joked to me that he wished he put a wire on me so that they could have gotten more info that might have led to an arrest. I said goodbye and moved on with my life.

Read more: I Was Trafficked as a Teen. Here’s What I Want People to Understand

In 2018, I was in treatment for Complex PTSD at the Crime Victims Treatment Center. The diagnosis clarified the mysterious cyclical years I had experienced after my violent teenage years. Part of my problem had been that I had not told people what had happened to me, so no professionals were seeing how I acted in light of the facts. People referred to dissociation as rising above your body, but I experienced this phenomenon as a sudden intoxication, like taking ambien or benadryl. Although flashbacks contained unwanted imagery, what really happened to me was suddenly feeling as if I were back in the rooms where I was getting raped. I stayed the same; the room changed. All of this jumbles time, and to heal from this, you learn techniques to separate the timelines, ways to keep the past the past and yourself in the present. You learn how to keep yourself safe and remind yourself of that fact.

When I learned that New York was going to pass the Child Victims Act, I prepared by figuring out what I wanted to do, which meant informing some of my family and friends what had happened to me as a teenager, or compartmentalizing and keeping secrets from those I cared about. This meant that I thought non-stop about the abuse, which worsened my days with more flashbacks, enacting daily cycles of high stress followed by catatonic fatigue and then searching for mind-numbing ways to escape. Considering I had only one year to attempt this sort of justice, everything moved at hyper-speed. I had no time to waste.

I had little experience with the legal system, and the process of attaining counsel as someone without money in New York meant that I first needed to go through the National Crime Victims Bar Association, an organization that refers victims to attorneys, who would take the meeting at a reduced, set rate. I told my story to the intake person on the phone, and then they connected me through email to three law offices, who I then had to contact myself. I emailed these law offices, who then had a junior lawyer call me to ask me details about my case, and I summarized for strangers the most shocking, violent moments of my life. Then, later that day or the next, they would ask for more information or apologize to me to tell me that they couldn’t take my case. They told me that the lawsuits they were interested in were class action against institutions like the church or boy scouts—or cases involving the famous or extremely wealthy, for insurance purposes. I was raped by a wealthy person, but not wealthy enough, and even then, the rapes didn’t take place somewhere that insurance would cover the ideal price. I was targeted and unlucky for what happened to me as a teenager, and then unluckier many years later for the way in which it happened. The lawyers, who were apologetic, told me to keep searching.

Read More: Statute-of-Limitation Laws Can Leave Few Choices for Child Sex-Abuse Victims. That’s Why These People Are Trying to Change Them

I didn’t want this period to have come to nothing. Remembering that the detective had joked about me wearing I wire, I figured that maybe something would happen if I were able to get one of the rapists to confess. I downloaded a gay hook-up app and changed my location to search for one of the men whose houses I had been to, and I found his face in the grid. I gave him my number and then screen-recorded our conversation as I trembled. He admitted to paying to rape and torture me when I was younger.

When the conversation ended, I emailed the detective from my case with the recording, and then we met at the FBI headquarters, where I gave my new evidence and tried again to move on with my life. The lookback window would be over soon, and I hoped to enter into a quieter era. But then New York extended the lookback window by a single year. They cited COVID-19. While this was good for the world, it seemed to go against their logic that this lookback window had to be short and quick in order for the preservation of cases, and it made the law feel as though it were serving people other than the victims.

If all the victims going forward from 2019 would have decades of time to report their crimes, why was I only getting an additional year? The Child Victims Act was partially great because of what it had done for future victims, but I also started to feel as though it were punishing me. The logic didn’t add up, and the cycles felt as though they had no thought on how ending and beginning, extending and creating hierarchies would impact the victims. Now the law was also functioning as a random forceful trigger.

In August of 2023, I read an article in the local news that lawmakers were considering renewing the lookback window in 2024. This again would prove that the logic of these single-year laws was false. You cannot have multiple expiration dates, and then keep telling me that it’s going to be good for another year. Child victims of the past must retain the same rights as victims in the future. Otherwise, there will be different classes of victims, where victims whose assaults involve corporations and insurance would have easier access to justice and a more likely result of a settlement, and then the people like me, whose cases are trickier without famous rapists or major insurance coverage, wouldn’t get the same kind of result.

By eliminating the statutes entirely, law firms would have the time to figure out how to properly litigate our cases and have more of an incentive to help. If we keep getting forced into these brief cycles, then we will not have only been victimized by our rapists, but also by the people who are trying to help us.

More Must-Reads From TIME

• Exclusive: Google Workers Revolt Over $1.2 Billion Contract With Israel
• Jane Fonda Champions Climate Action for Every Generation
• Stop Looking for Your Forever Home
• The Sympathizer Counters 50 Years of Hollywood Vietnam War Narratives
• The Bliss of Seeing the Eclipse From Cleveland
• Hormonal Birth Control Doesn’t Deserve Its Bad Reputation
• The Best TV Shows to Watch on Peacock
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Contact us at [email protected]

You May Also Like

Moscow Munchkins

Capturing Today's Moments For Tomorrow's memories

Friday, December 28, 2012

Child abuse in russia is routine | the moscow times.

Sad day when a country who benefits from international adoptions closes its doors to one of the countries who openly adopt from them.

Post a Comment

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Health Insurers’ Lucrative, Little-Known Alliance: 5 Takeaways

A private-equity-backed firm has helped drive down payments to medical providers, drive up patients’ bills and earn billions for insurers.

By Chris Hamby

Large health insurers are working with a little-known data company to boost their profits, often at the expense of patients and doctors, a New York Times investigation found. A private-equity-backed firm called MultiPlan has helped drive down payments to medical providers and drive up patients’ bills, while earning billions of dollars in fees for itself and insurers.

To investigate this largely hidden facet of the health care industry, The Times interviewed more than 100 patients, doctors, billing specialists, health plan advisers and former MultiPlan employees, and reviewed more than 50,000 pages of documents, including confidential records made public by two federal judges after petitions from The Times.

Here are five takeaways.

The smaller the payout to doctors, the bigger the fees for insurers and MultiPlan

When patients see medical providers outside their plans’ networks, UnitedHealthcare, Cigna, Aetna and other insurers often send the bills to MultiPlan to recommend a payment amount.

MultiPlan and the insurers have a powerful incentive to keep the payments low because their fees get bigger as the payments get smaller.

Here’s how it works.

The most common way Americans get health coverage is through an employer that pays for workers’ medical care itself and uses an insurance company to administer the plan. Providers in the plan’s network have agreed-upon rates, but out-of-network providers often must negotiate payments.

By using MultiPlan’s frugal recommendations, insurers say they are saving employers money. But insurers and MultiPlan also benefit because their fees are typically based on the size of the declared “savings” or “discount” — the difference between the original bill and the amount actually paid.

In some instances, insurers and MultiPlan have collected more for processing a claim than the provider received for treating the patient.

UnitedHealthcare, the largest U.S. insurer by revenue, has reaped about $1 billion in fees annually in recent years from out-of-network savings programs, including its work with MultiPlan, according to legal testimony.

Patients could be on the hook for the unpaid bills

Patients have seen their bills rise after their insurers began routing claims to MultiPlan, as providers charge them for the unpaid balance.

Some patients said they have scaled back or ceased long-term treatment as a result. The predicament can be especially punishing for people who depend on out-of-network specialists, including for mental health or substance abuse treatment.

Patients have limited recourse. If they want to sue, they usually must first complete an administrative appeals process, and even if the case goes forward, they stand to collect relatively modest amounts.

Self-funded plans are mostly exempt from state regulation, and the responsible federal agency says it has just one investigator for every 8,800 health plans.

Some medical providers face big pay cuts

MultiPlan and insurers say they are combating rampant overbilling by some doctors and hospitals, a chronic problem that research has linked to rising health care costs and regulators are examining. But low payments also squeeze small medical practices.

Kelsey Toney, who provides behavioral therapy for children with autism in rural Virginia, saw her pay cut in half for two patients. She has not billed the parents of those children, but said she would not accept new patients with similar insurance.

Other providers said they have begun requiring patients to pay upfront because appealing for higher insurance payments can be time-consuming, infuriating and futile.

Former MultiPlan employees said they had an incentive to lock in unreasonably low amounts: Their bonuses were tied to the size of the reductions.

Employers are charged hefty fees

Insurance companies pitch MultiPlan as a way to keep costs down, but some employers have complained about large and unanticipated fees.

For a New Jersey trucking company called New England Motor Freight, UnitedHealthcare used MultiPlan to reduce a hospital bill from $152,594 to $7,879, then charged the company a $50,650 processing fee.

In the Phoenix area, trustees managing an electricians’ union health plan were surprised to learn that the fees charged by Cigna had risen from around $550,000 in 2016 to $2.6 million in 2019, according to a lawsuit the trustees later filed.

Employers trying to verify the accuracy of insurers’ charges have sometimes faced challenges getting access to their own employees’ data.

Private equity is playing both sides

For years, insurance companies have blamed private-equity-backed hospitals and physician groups for hiking bills and making health care more expensive. But MultiPlan is also backed by private equity.

MultiPlan’s annual revenues have climbed to about $1 billion thanks to its embrace of more aggressive approaches to reducing costs. Its premier offering is an algorithm-driven tool called Data iSight , which consistently recommends the lowest payments to doctors — typically resulting in the highest processing fees.

MultiPlan became publicly traded in 2020, and its largest shareholders include the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman and the Saudi Arabian government’s sovereign wealth fund, regulatory documents show.

Chris Hamby is an investigative reporter for The Times, based in Washington. More about Chris Hamby