Child Abuse
Who is a child?
We all are almost in agreement with defining who
is classed as a child. However, lets see what the officials has to say. The United
Nations
definition of a child: Is
every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law
applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier.
About Child
Abuse
The act of "Child
Abuse" was long
implemented against children but only lately it had a
name and an official recognition. The
damage subsequent to child abuse is normally not limited to the time the child is being abused but
it rather extend to inflect damage to the mentality and the personality of the child and thus can
effect their behavior
in their childhood as well as in their adulthood.
Children whom survive abuse to adulthood might abuse their own children
whom would in turn abuse their kids and so on. That's why Child Abuse will remain a closed loop which
needs to be broken. It is indeed
like a virus, it is self replicating just like an organic virus. Its
effects does not stop on damaging the life of that child alone, it
creates a downward spiral through generations, each victim more likely to infect,
behavior wise, more and more victims. Projects such as the "Be
Free" are sincere endeavors to work on both protecting the child from abuse and to
attempt to brake the vicious cycle of Child Abuse.
Child Abuse is not just
an individual or a limited family problem, it is a national and
international problem. All of us had experienced the effect of abuse in
one of the following three forms: We either had experienced direct Child Abuse when
we were kids, or we saw a child being abused or heard a story of a child that
had been abused. Children whom
survive abuse grow up more likely to negatively impact the
society in many ways. So really it is true to say that Child Abuse damages goes out of
the family boundary and infects the society with callousness
and cynicism, anger, violence, crime, drugs and disease.
The worst case is when an abused child becomes power figure or say a head state.
Could you image what would happen to those under his or her direct power?
The effects of Child
Abuse on victims are devastating and may last life long. It is not easy to measure the
rate of Child Abuse on the society because it is one of the most underreported
violence and it is always dealt with great secrecy. It reflects the society attitude and acceptance.
There are many simple, cost-effective solutions
that could help in limiting the problem but they require official
and social recognition and awareness of the problem of
Child Abuse and Neglect. There are
some organizations which are doing good work to
prevent and fix the problem similar to the Bahrain Women Society
(BWS) through the "Be Free" project. and we invite you
to join our mission to help create better families and societies.
There are four main types of
Child Abuse that we need to first identify namely: Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Emotional
Abuse and Neglect. Each is addressed in the following links:
What is Physical abuse?
What is Sexual abuse?
What is Emotional abuse?
What
is Neglect?
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