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Essay on Child Abuse and Neglect

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There are many things in our society today that unfortunately go overlooked. One such thing that is overlooked is the number of children who are being abused. Unfortunately these children are going through life not knowing whether or not their parents will loose their temper and perhaps kill them. There are many types of child abuse, such as physical, sexual, and emotional. Physical abuse is physical injury as a result of punching, beating, kicking, biting, shaking, throwing, stabbing, choking, hitting, burning, or otherwise harming a child. Such injury is considered abuse regardless of whether the caretaker intended to hurt the child. Sexual abuse includes activities by a parent or caretaker such as fondling a child's genitals, …show more content…

According to statistics 12.4 per 1000 children under the age of 17 have been a victim of child abuse. More than 6 million children are reported as abused in the last year. Sadly the fate of many of these children that live in abusive homes is death. 1.84 per 100,000 was reported to be abused in 2012. The number continued to rise to 1.96 in 2014. In the reported cases both or one parent was the cause of the death 79% of the time. In 16% of the cases a non-parent guardian was the cause of death. 5% of the deaths were caused by an unknown person. There are many things that cause parents to abuse their children and there are also many affects that abuse has on the child being abused. You cannot pinpoint one cause for child abuse, because parents abuse their children for many different reasons. One reason for the abuse is that the parents were abused as children. So, this is the only way they know to discipline their children. Another reason is that the parents are teenagers and not ready for children One more reason for the abuse is alcohol and substance abuse. The affect that abuse has on children is not only physical but the abuse affects children on many different levels. When children are abused they are 53% more likely to commit criminal acts as an adolescent and 40% more likely to commit a crime as an adult. Also the children have maladaptive, anti-social and

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