Children as Victims of Violence

Abstract

Violence against children and youths has always occurred, but it has recently been subject to increased public attention. This heightened attention is spawned by high-profile cases of stranger abductions, sexual assault, child abuse, and homicide, and by statistics suggesting an increase in the number of cases of child victimization. For example, newspapers recently reported that almost twice as many individuals under age 20 (5,500) died from gunshots in 1993 as in 1984. 1 But deaths, while the most dramatic of victimizations, are only the tip of the iceberg. More frequently, children are abused and neglected by parents, assaulted by siblings, or intimidated by other children. When all of these types of victimization are considered as a whole, children suffer far more victimizations than do members of other age groups. Children are more prone to victimization than adults not only because they are smaller and weaker than adults but also because they are dependent on adults for their day-to-day care and can seldom choose where and with whom they will live and spend time. Problems such as neglect, family abduction, and psychological maltreatment are strongly related to dependency, and these are much more common for children than for most adults. As children age, they become more independent, so the types of victimizations that they are most at risk for change, and the risks arise more from associations with other youths than from dependency on adults. 2 The concept of children as victims brings together the disparate studies of child abuse, sexual abuse, kidnapping, and other forms of violence with studies of such victimizations as assaults by siblings and peer violence. This integration highlights the number of victimizations that children face and may make it easier to identify relationships among different kinds of victimization and to design appropriate interventions. 2 Ultimately, however, defining and measuring child victimization as an integrative category of experiences is useful only if doing so leads to a better understanding of the