Protecting Children: A Responsibility of All of Us

Any person aged 18 years and below is a child. Being under 18 years simply means that one is not an adult; therefore, one cannot make sound decisions on his/her own. Hence, every child requires protection beginning from his/her immediate family to state protection. Child protection refers to the response and inhibition to violence, abuse, and mistreatment against children - including sexual exploitation for commercial purposes, forced labour, trafficking, and harmful traditional practices (Martellozzo, 2019). These practices include child marriage and female genital mutilation. Children and young people explain the growth of a nation. Therefore, the safeguarding of kids and young people is a crucial component of international growth. This paper targets to give an in-depth analysis of the historical perspectives and legislative changes that affect the protection of children and young people. The paper gives a clear understanding of what child protection is, and the common factors that have affected it.

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Historical Perspectives that Affect Child Protection

Child Abuse

Literature, science, and art have recorded child misuse for a lengthy period in different parts of the world. Many acts of violence against children such as female genital mutilation, abandonment, infanticide, and other heinous acts towards children date way back to antique cultures. History records show reports of weak, frowzy, and hungry children left by their families to fend for themselves, and also files of sexually ill-treated kids.

For a long period now, groups concerned with child welfare have advocated for the safeguarding of children and young people. These groups, which started back in the early 1900s, failed to receive global attention from the general public and the medical professionals until the year 1962, when "The Battered Child Syndrome" got published.

The phrase "Battered Child Syndrome" is significant since it characterises the medical indicators of severe corporal torture in kids. Since 1962, child abuse has proved to be a global problem. Child abuse happens in different forms and has roots in economic, cultural, and social practices (Dowd, 2020). However, addressing this problem, there is a need for explicit knowledge of its occurrence in different settings, and its causes and significances.

How is Child Abuse Demarcated?

Cultural Concerns

A universal approach to the exploitation of children needs to consider the different expectations and standards for parenting behaviour in various world cultures. Culture constitutes a society's common behaviours and beliefs, and the concepts of how members of that society should conduct themselves. Among the theories are ideas about acts of commission or omission that can cause child abuse (Smaal, 2013). Culture helps in defining agreed principles of child upbringing and protection. Different cultures have different guidelines on the right parenting practices. Suggestions from various researchers on views of child-rearing across cultures may extend to points that the agreement on neglectful or abusive become difficult to achieve. However, the differences in how cultures explain child abuse depend on features of parental behaviour. In different communities, there exists a collective agreement that teenage exploitation is not right and disallowed.

Types of Abuse

Definitions of child abuse were compared from different countries by the Transnational Society for the Deterrence of Child Misuse and abandonment. From its research, it found commonalities in what the states referred to as abusive (Oliveira & Baines, 2020). The WHO, in the year 1999 defined child mistreatment as all practices of emotional and physical maltreatment, sexual exploitation, negligence, or financial exploitation that results in potential or definite harm to a child's health, dignity, improvement, or survival in the setting of a connection of accountability, supremacy or trust. Most definitions focus on actions or adult behaviours on children, while others assume abuse takes place when there is harm or potential harm.

The above-explained definition covers a broad abuse spectrum. Caregivers or parents can pose actions of omission or commission that eventually result in child harm. The four main types of child mistreatment by guardians to children include;

Physical misuse

Emotional misuse

Sexual exploitation

Neglect

When talking of physical abuse, the real meaning is those deeds of commission by a guardian that bring about bodily injury to a child or are potentially harmful.

Sexual abuse, on the other hand, is when a parent uses a child for sexual fulfilment. Emotional mistreatment happens when a parent fails to provide a supportive and appropriate environment for a child. Acts that may cause adverse effects on the emotional fitness of a child include child movement restriction, mockery, discrimination, intimidation and threats, rejection, and other practices of aggressive handling (Scherrer, 2012). On the other hand, the parent's failure to provide for the child's improvement, and the parent can do so in any of the areas listed: education, health, nourishment, or safety conditions of living gets referred to as neglect. Therefore neglect is different from poverty in that neglect occurs when the caregiver or family has reasonable resources for child support.

Risk Factors for Neglect and Child Abuse

Researchers have developed a variety of models and theories to clarify the incidence of child misuse in families. The most commonly used model in explaining this scenario is the ecological model. Applied to neglect and child abuse, the ecological model relies on several factors, such as the attributes of the child, characteristics of the child's family, nature of the native community, and the economic, societal and cultural environment. Study shows that some of the mentioned factors are consistent, in a wide range of nations, in conferring risk. The factors explained below are statistically proven but not linked causally.

Aspects that Increase a Kid's Vulnerability

Researches, mostly from industrialised nations, indicate that there are assured children's characteristics that raise the risk of abuse. The factors include;

Age

The child's age acts as a key determinant of whether the child is vulnerable to abuse. Serious physical abuse cases happen largely to young infants. For example, the majority of infant deaths in Finland, Fiji, Senegal, and Germany affected kids below the age of 2 years. On the other hand, sexual abuse cases arise at the beginning of adolescence, where the greatest abuse rates occur at puberty. However, young children can also suffer from sexual abuse.

Sex

In most countries, girls stand a greater threat of sexual misuse, infanticide, informative and dietary neglect, and involuntary prostitution compared to boys. Studies from international reports show that the rates of sexual exploitation are 1.5-3 times greater to boys than girls. In many nations, girls stay at home to care for their siblings; hence don't attend school. On the other hand, boys suffer punitive physical torture in many states.

Special Appearance

Studies have shown that premature infants, disabled children, and twins are at a greater risk of neglect or physical abuse. Research has shown some evidence that mental retardation acts as a risk factor. This retardation increases the vulnerability of a child to abuse.

Family and Parent Characteristics

The physiological and behavioural attributes of a caregiver or the family's environmental aspects may compromise parenting, thus leading to child abuse.

Prior History of Abuse

History confirms that those parents who got abused while they were children have a higher possibility of abusing their children.

Community Factors

Poverty

Child abused has a great association with poverty. Groups with higher heights of joblessness and severe shortage show higher rates of child maltreatment. Poverty has negative effects on children through its effect on parent performance and resource accessibility.

Social Principle

The social principle signifies the mark of solidarity and cohesion existing within societies. Teenagers who live in parts with less "social cohesion" tend to experience a bigger risk of exploitation and suffer more behavioural and emotional difficulties. On the other hand, connections and social setups play a great role in child protection.

Legislative Changes Affecting the Safeguarding of Children

Legislative Reform on Behalf of Children's' Rights

Through the acceptance of CRC, the Contract on Rights of Children, a breakthrough in the protection of children's rights got realised. The CRC did not only guarantee safeguarding of children, but also clarified that children are holders of rights in all aspects of life, that is, the economic, political, civil, cultural, and social life. Article Four of the CRC clarifies the general obligation, which is "to take appropriate administrative, legislative, and other measures, and implementation of the guaranteed rights." The article confirms that legislative reform stands as one of the most efficient strategies in the advancement of children's rights (Henry-Lee & Johnson-Coke, 2019). The chapter suggests that legislative reform to enforce the law is inadequate to realise both national legislation harmony with the CRC, and effective implementation of children's rights.

The CRC allows assuming a methodology based on children's rights recognition using the convention's provisions and principles as an ultimate point of reference for the content and process of legislative reform. The CRC lays the ground for holistic and comprehensive legislative reforms that oblige the state parties to review the whole range of regulations and legislation affecting children's rights realisation. These reforms range from constitutional and penal reforms to judicial reforms.

Human Rights-based Legislative Reform

The term legislative reform does not have a clear definition. The definition depends on the understanding of the experts in the field. The legislative modification covers more than just "stating the law." It includes revising and restructuring not only the rules, but also the necessary procedures to implement the laws-policies, guidelines, budget allocations, associations, and the restructuring process in the state (Abdulraheem-Mustapha, 2020).

From a human rights viewpoint, the legislative change concerning the CRC is a methodology based on the maximum acknowledgment of the equal privileges of boys, girls, and children as subjects of rights in society. This method requires adequate public involvement in the conscripting, debating, and authorisation of legislation by individuals indirectly or directly impacted by the legislation. The approach targets the enactment of legislation in all sections of humanity and the teens' lives aspects. Therefore, a human rights-based methodology to legislative reform is a framework for guaranteeing maximum compliance of national legislation with international human rights norms, and a firm realisation of human rights.

Human Rights Principles and Legislative Reform

The key human rights principles guide legislative reform issues. These principles include; (1) Universality of rights, (2) non-discrimination and equality, (3) interconnectedness and interdependence of rights, (4) participation of stakeholders, and (5) accountability (Ramesh, 2001).

Universality of Rights

Based on human rights, an approach to legislative reform recognises that all human rights apply equally in all traditions, cultures, and political systems, without mitigation or adjustment. The legislative reform...