International perspectives on child harm

Abstract

T issue takes an international perspective and includes papers examining child harm in Africa and the United States (US) as well as contributions from New Zealand and Poland. It has become commonplace to assert that child abuse is socially constructed but the real meaning of this phrase emerges when accounts of child maltreatment from different parts of the world are brought together and variations and convergences can be identified. This issue of Child Abuse Review highlights the extent to which wider social problems and events shape both children’s experience of harm in a particular society and the capacity of that society and its services to intervene. Linda Richter’s and Andrew Dawes’ paper (2008) explores the social and cultural conditions that give rise to high rates of child abuse and neglect in South Africa. Despite legislation and policy designed to promote children’s rights and ensure their protection, poverty, unemployment, patriarchy, substance abuse and cultural attitudes combine to produce high levels of child maltreatment. The authors emphasise the opportunistic and non-specific nature of child abuse in South Africa where abuse occurs, not in the context of a specific relationship between the child and the perpetrator, but because circumstances offer the opportunity and the child has learnt unquestioning obedience to adult males. In considering how services can develop to respond to the scale of problems identified, the authors draw on the experience of child protection services in the US to warn against the dangers of focusing on developing investigation services which allow no resources for family support. The emphasis on investigation and assessment and the consequent lack of resources for therapeutic services for children who have experienced abuse emerges as an increasingly important theme in the UK literature also (Corby, 2006). Richter and Dawes note the need for collaboration between all sectors engaged with children and families; they also emphasise the importance of research which aims to understand and explain child harm in South Africa as well as establishing its incidence and prevalence. Kevin Lalor picks up and explores one of the issues identified by Richter and Dawes in his review of the literature examining HIV Child Abuse Review Vol. 17: 75–78 (2008) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/car.1023