Child’s Rights Need Respect Too

The No. 1 cause of death in children under the age of 1 is child abuse. In our media-saturated society, publicized cases of abuse tend to cloud the reality of the problem. Grim details and horrific tales of a deranged abuser give the image that the problem is only prevalent where there is a severely disturbed parent, such as the Orange County woman who ran over her baby with the car and pleaded postpartum depression as an excuse.

But what about the individual who is not overtly aggressive? Do we stop to consider the thousands of people that lead “normal” lives and beat their children as a form of punishment or a release of their own frustrations? We cannot turn our backs and say, “Well, I don’t abuse children.” Child abuse is not an individual’s problem. It is society’s problem. We need to work together to give children a life free of emotional and physical abuse.

Child abuse appears in two general forms: physical abuse and emotional abuse. Physical abuse can and does consist of slapping, punching, biting, burning, scratching and sexual molestation. This mistreatment can both maim and kill a child. Emotional abuse, which is the most difficult to detect, is a subtle, insidious destruction of a child’s self-esteem and psychological sense of self. This form of abuse can be the most dangerous to a child’s psyche. A child that is constantly intimidated, belittled and neglected is going to have trouble interacting with peers, authority figures and society in general. An abused child has severe difficulty growing emotionally; this often leads to psychological problems later in life.

Most abused children will not report their own suffering, fearing further abuse from their persecutor. Unexplained bruises, welts and burns, children who are consistently uncared for and hungry, abrupt changes in behavior and prolonged listlessness are all possible signs of child abuse and should be questioned. If abuse is reasonably suspected, a national referral service is readily available at (800) 4-A-CHILD.

In order for a child to be freed from this suffering, the abuse must be reported. However, once the report is made, the situation can sometimes go from bad to worse. Abused children tend to develop a love-hate relationship with the abuser. Often an abused child will be removed from the home screaming for the same person that was abusing him or her, since the child prefers “hell” to the unknown. A child may also protect the abuser and deny the abuse in an attempt to win love or out of fear of the wrath that may result in admitting to the suffering. The child’s hesitation to report the details is further complicated by the fact that the legal system is usually intent on reuniting a family.

As a therapist, I cannot express how painful it is to help children protect themselves when the law cannot. By focusing intently on a parent’s rights, the law often returns abused children to the parents, resulting in further abuse, and sometimes death. A child’s rights must be considered to be equally important, if not more important, as a parent’s, if only for the fact that a child is defenseless against an adult. A recent case in Orange County shows the court’s focus on parental rights and family reunification.

A father had been abusing his 7-year-old daughter through repeated physical beatings, verbal harassment and sexual molestation. Once the abuse was reported and proven, the law intervened to separate the father and the child.

After the separation, the courts wanted to give the father another chance--even though there had been documented evidence of verbal, physical and sexual abuse. The father was allowed unsupervised, off-grounds visitation rights and the abuse continued. When it was finally realized that abuse was still occurring, the father was restricted to supervised visitations. This child suffered needless pain and psychological damage--that may be irreversible--in order to preserve the parent’s rights. But what about the child’s rights? Our legal system is so intent on reunification that it will be recommended even when it is not in the child’s best interest.

Why should a child’s rights take a back seat to the parents’? Child-abuse legislation needs a change of focus. Parents should not always have the ultimate right, and reunification is not always the answer.

Statistics show that once a family is reunited, child abuse usually occurs again. Children deserve the legal right not to be abused.

Our courts need to set some precedence regarding children’s rights. We need to offer alternatives and counseling to abusive parents, as well as the children. It must also be realized that depression and alcoholism do not relieve parents of their responsibilities.

We must all work with the legal system by reporting child abuse and instituting laws that protect children before another child is afflicted.