Domestic Violence and Child Abuse

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Human rights are the basic and absolute rights that every person has because he or she is a human being. Every human being has these rights although the extent to which they can be enforced in practice varies from country to country. At the international level most of these basic human rights have been described in the United Nations (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948. While there is considerable variation in national legislation between countries, most constitutions worldwide state that everyone is equal before the law, and that each person is entitled to equal protection under the law without any discrimination. A growing body of clinical experience and research reveals that domestic violence and child abuse occur in the same families and are highly associated with similar social and economic risk factors; Data also show that children growing up in violent families are more likely to engage in youth violence. Furthermore, the social and economic risk factors for youth violence correspond to the risk factors for domestic violence and child abuse. Given these findings, an effective strategy to combat child abuse, domestic violence and youth violence would be a collaborative, community-based prevention/early intervention effort that aims to reduce the social and economic risk factors for at-risk families. This paper outlines proposed components of such a program and presents a strong argument for the development of national and local collaborative prevention efforts between the three fields.