Essay Example on Child Abuse: Unveiling Causes of a Contentious Issue

Introduction

Child abuse is defined as any act from a caregiver or a parent, which can lead to the risk of serious harm to a child, cause emotional damage, death, or injury, whether through failure to act or through action. There are different types of child abuse, which include emotional abuse, sexual abuse, exploitation, physical abuse, and child neglect—a concern to understand why causes child abuse has remained a contentious issue in society. There is no single reason that can be used to account for child maltreatment. In most cases, parents will be willing to care and love their children in a safe home. However, some external factors, such as lack of family support, parenting skills, tiredness, or stress, might create pressure, making child care overwhelming. Child maltreatment can happen in different settings, such as at home, in the neighborhood, or in children's orphanages. Over the years, the rate of child abuse has been on the rise. As such, the National Council for Children's Services has developed strategies to help save a child from any maltreatment. It releases some factors that the public can use to determine cases of child abuse in their neighborhoods. They include visible dents or injuries, retarded growth, negative emotions, and malnutrition symptoms due to poor feeding. Child abuse can be prevented or treated for the well-being of abused children. The good thing is that many groups and organizations are determined to help prevent and care for victims of children. However, the main challenge has been identifying abused children. As such, the social workers' groups have been sensitizing the community members how they can take part in preventing child maltreatment. Reporting any case of child abuse from the community is the best intervention for the community to prevent child abuse.

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Legal and Ethical Protocols on Child Abuse

Child protection duty is a task for all members of society. However, the health workers and professionals who work with children, such as pediatricians, are placed in a unique position to recognize signs of dental neglect, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and physical abuse. In cases where they notice or suspect any form of child maltreatment, they are supposed to report to the child welfare. Nevertheless, the responsibilities of professionals are regulated by ethical and legal obligations. In the United States, health professionals dealing with children are obligated to report any suspected child abuse and neglect (CAN). As required by the law, any health professional who fails to say or even delay a report concerning CAN suspected issue is liable to a conviction to a monetary fine. Any suspected case by professionals should be reported to the center for Social Services CSS. Dentists are not required to treat or diagnose symptoms of child maltreatment; instead, they should report it to CSS with supportive evidence. Apart from legal obligations, health professionals are guided by ethical obligations (Reece et al., 2014). The source of moral code comes from dental and medical ethical codes regulated by the Council of Dentists or Chamber.

Health care professionals of children who are victims of neglect, emotional abuse, sexual, and physical should be guided by the responsibility to respond, prevent and protect all forms of violence that children are exposed to. International human rights standards highlight these obligations. The United States has ratified several human right instrument, including eliminating any form of discrimination against children and the conventional right of children. Apart from recognizing these rights, the human right standard specifies individual responsibility of duty bearer, specifically healthcare institutions and healthcare providers, to ensure the most effective measures to protect CAN (Reece et al., 2014). They relate to the right to health, participation, privacy, and protection. Understanding the scope of these standards and how they translate to national law is vital for the health and social workers dealing with children exposed to maltreatment.

The principle of best interest is among the international human standard that guides duty-bearers on how to respond to victims of CAN. It aims to promote and protect the safety, including the emotional and physical safety of a child. During the care provision, a child health worker cautiously chose any cause of action while considering any possible consequence, including maltreatment likelihood, continuing. They should also provide sensitive care. For example, children who disclose information about being abused should listen without prejudice or blaming them for reporting abuse. Social and health workers should also promote and protect confidentiality and privacy when dealing with abused children. This means that only the professional health providers should be present in the room when a child exposed to CAN undergo examination and consultations. The principle of non-discriminatory requires that all children be exposed to quality care despite their socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, race-ethnicity, or sex. The policy also emphasizes that more attention should be given to vulnerable groups since they are more prone to maltreatment (Reece et al., 2014). Lastly, there is the principle of participation, which requires that children exposed to CAN be given the right to participate in decisions that affect their lives depending on their age and level of understanding.

Types of Child Abuse

There is a typical myth that child abuse can only occur when physical violence is involved. However, the fact is that different types of child maltreatment are detrimental to child well-being. Harm can come from parents or caregivers, early childhood teachers, neighbors, or relatives. Educators can identify each type of child abuse. Health professionals who deal with children or educators in initial education settings trough specific distinguishing symptoms depending on nature and type of maltreatment (Crosson-Tower, 1999). Regardless of the source of child abuse, involved parties should report any suspected child abuse case so that an effective intervention can be made.

The first type of child maltreatment is emotional abuse. Emotional abuse can cause adverse effects on a child's social and mental development. Many practices qualify to be emotional abuse. They include limiting contact with children and lacking to show child signs of affection. Rejecting or ignoring a child when used as a punishment is also emotional abuse. Frequently bullying or yelling to a child is the other aspect considered as emotional neglect. Besides, humiliating, shaming belittling, making unfavorable comparisons, or continually telling children that they are a mistake, evil or not suitable, are considered emotional abuse. Symptoms that can be used to identify children exposed to emotional maltreatment include extremes in behaviors such as aggression, and overly compliant. A delay in emotional and physical development is also a common symptom (Myers, 1998). In most cases, children who emotionally abuse victims might show little or no attachment to parents. Some emotionally abused children can also become suicidal.

Child neglect is the other common type of child maltreatment in society. It refers to any action by the primary caregiver that leads to neglect of duty, such as failing to provide adequate supervision, hygiene, clothing, and food. Unlike other forms of maltreatment, child neglect can be hard to spot. Various factors that are uncontrollable to the caregivers might cause child neglect. In some cases, a caregiver might be mentally or physically unable to care for a child. It might occur due to the presence of untreated anxiety or depression or severe injury or illness. Substance abuse, which leads to impaired judgments, can make a parent fail to take care of a child. Whatever the case, such children's well-being might be affected, and hence reporting any suspected case of child neglect is considered the best intervention to help them (Crosson-Tower, 1999). Some signs such as frequently missing or being late for school, untreated illnesses, poor hygiene, and clothes that are unfit for the weather and dirty.

Physical abuse is the other form of child maltreatment. It involves bodily injury or harm to a child. Some action from the caregivers, such as excessive physical punishment or deliberately hurting a child account for physical abuse. Most parents who expose their children to physical abuse argue that it is a way to make a child learn to behave or a simple form of discipline. However, a difference between physical damage and physical punishment exists. Unlike in simple physical control, where children will know why they are being punished, physical abuse involves unpredictability. Children are not aware of which behaviors would trigger a physical assault. An abusive parent would act out of anger rather than motivation or desire to lovely teach child behaviors. An abusive parent might hold a misconception that their children need to fear them and use physical assault as a mechanism. Some signs of physical abuse include wearing fancy clothes to hide injuries, afraid to go home, always alert as if waiting something terrible to happen, and frequent cuts, welts, or unexplained bruises (Myers, 1998).

Sexual abuse is another phenomenon that is common in society. It is mainly a more complicated form of child maltreatment due to its layers of shame and guilt. Sexual abuse can result from various activities, not necessarily involving body contact. Exposing a child to sexual material or situation counts as sexual abuse even when body contact is not required. Similar to other forms of child maltreatment, sexual violence harms a child. After being exposed to sexual abuse, children become tormented by guilt and shame. Some might feel as if they somehow brought it upon themselves or as if they are responsible. It can cause relationships and sexual problems as they grow or self-loathing. Besides, due to shame developed among the victims of sexual abuse, most of them never report such cases. They might also fear that it would tear family apart, other family members will be angry, or they won't believe. The shame developed also limits false accusations in sexual abuse cases, and hence a child who confides should be taken seriously (Crosson-Tower, 1999). Some signs such as running away from home, pregnancy or STD, avoiding specific persons with no reason, or trouble sitting or walking can show exposure to child sexual abuse.

A Netflix series "Trials of Gabriel Fernandez," which has inspired this study, is an example of child abuse in the society. It depicts a society where parents abuse a child and how it can cause severe consequences to a victim, even death if the notion of identification or suspecting, reporting, and acting accordingly by the acting groups such as social workers is not ensured. The series shows how Gabriel was exposed to horrible torture for eight months, including pepper spray, locked in a cupboard for hours, forced to eat cat litter, shot by a BB gun, and beat. Eventually, he is beaten to death by his mother and her boyfriend. While the murderers are prosecuted for their crimes, the prosecutor also press charges on social workers since they failed to perform their duty to rescue Gabriel from these abuses despite Gabriel's effort to report the issue which shows that social workers should take their legal obligations to protect children from maltreatment seriously. A teacher and social workers said similar cases presented in courts such as Antony, a ten-year-old boy who was abused by being denied food, and the case never responded to show some negligence.