Violence against children

The Children's Rights Alliance for England have produced this report to complement the UN study on violence against children.

They use official statistics to paint a vivid picture of the scale of the issue -

"Imagine a large English city – bigger than York, smaller than Birmingham. One hundred thousand children live in this city.

In an average year one child aged under 15 in this city will be murdered, probably by his or her parent. In the same year 240 children will be on the child protection register as a result of having been mistreated. Forty-six of these will have been physically assaulted and 24 sexually abused. The rest will have been neglected or abused in other ways.

In the city’s homes, large numbers of young children will routinely endure physical pain at the hands of their own parents. In one year in this city of 100,000 young people, at least 38,000 children under the age of 13 will be hit, whacked, beaten, slapped or smacked. Three-quarters of the babies born that year in this city will be hit before their first birthday. Around 3,500 children will experience corporal punishment deemed to be “severe”, and should doubtless join those 51 children whose physical abuse merits investigation by the authorities.

As many as 11,000 of the city’s children will, at some point in their childhood, be sexually assaulted by touching or penetration. Most will know their abuser and most will not tell anyone about it. Only a small proportion will see the abuse brought to an end."

The report goes on to share research into violence against children; child death and violence in homes, on the streets and in schools before making recommendations.