The UN Convention on
the Rights of the Child calls the family
“the natural environment for growth
and well-being”, but studies throughout
Europe and Central Asia paint a darker
picture. Quite simply, for many children
home is not a haven but a hell –
the place where they face the most violence,
yet the place where it is the least visible.
Society still hesitates
to act against violence within families.
Children are often considered the ‘“property’
of parents, rather than people with their
own rights to protection. Violent and
humiliating punishment by parents and
close carers remains lawful and very common
in the majority of Europe and Central
Asia countries. Harmful traditional practices
such as female genital circumcision and
honour killings are left unchallenged
because of ignorance or a fear of offending.
Every day, many children
across Europe are hit, kicked, threatened,
ridiculed or isolated. If an adult were
subject to any of these actions it would
be a criminal assault in any European
country.
The facts
These examples aim to
give a general picture for Europe and
Central Asia. Facts and figures about
violence against children are always difficult
to find. Many children are afraid to speak
out, and statistics can be influenced
by the questions researchers ask or the
size or nature of the group they choose.
Some issues – such as sexual abuse
and some harmful traditional practices
– are only just being documented:
the vast majority of cases do not come
to official notice.
Violence in the family
- According to UNICEF,
two children die every week in the United
Kingdom and Germany from maltreatment
and three die every week in France.
- The risk of homicide
is about three times greater for children
under the age of one than for those aged
1-4. That age group, in turn, faces double
the risk of those aged 5-14.
- A 2003 study of students
in Croatia showed that 93 per cent had
experienced violence.
- Most parents in most
countries still believe it is acceptable
to smack or slap a child.
- About 10 to 30 per
cent of children in many States are beaten
severely with belts, sticks or other objects:
in some cases the abuse of children amounts
to torture.
- Over half the Moldovan
children interviewed for one study reported
being harmed or injured.
- Three quarters of a
sample of British mothers in the mid-1990s
admitted to ‘smacking’ their
baby before the age of one.
Sexual abuse
- The most likely victims
are girls, pre-teens or early teens and
children with disabilities;
- Studies carried out
in 14 European countries put the rate
of sexual abuse both within and outside
the family at 9 per cent: 33 per cent
for girls and 3 to 15 per cent for boys;
- In 2000, a Romanian study showed that
9.1 per cent of children questioned said
they had been abused and 1.1 per cent
had been raped;
- In Tajikistan, 9.7 per cent of mothers
reported that their husbands and/or a
relative had sexually abused their children.
Harmful traditional practices
- Honour killings, where
family members murder relatives they believe
have acted immorally, have existed for
centuries in Turkey and Albania;
- Young women have been
killed by their families in Germany, the
United Kingdom, and Sweden for refusing
to follow traditional ways;
- Child marriage is still
common amongst the Roma and has led to
girls being forcibly married in Slovakia
and Albania;
- In the United Kingdom,
about 200 cases of forced marriage are
reported to the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office every year.
What is being done?
Reports show that Europe
is ahead of other regions in taking measures
to stop violence against children. All
countries in Europe are quickly changing
from a past in which violent and humiliating
punishment of children was common and
accepted. Sweden started the process of
law reform half a century ago and became
the first State in the world to explicitly
ban corporal punishment in 1979. It is
now also illegal in Austria, Bulgaria,
Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany,
Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Norway,
Portugal, Romania and Ukraine. Other countries,
which have said they intend to bring in
a law against corporal punishment, include
the Netherlands, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Law reform is accelerating.
The European Court of Human Rights has
issued a number of judgements that require
laws against child violence to be toughened
up in Europe and stressed that Governments
have an obligation to criminalize non-consensual
sex.
Programmes to promote
good parenting are a growing trend in
Europe. For example, in Moldova, parent
education is being mainstreamed through
the health-care system. In Serbia and
Montenegro, mobile outreach teams and
multidisciplinary groups for child protection
have been set up in towns and cities using
different professional skills and mobilizing
the communities.
How do we go forward?
- States should be made
accountable for failures to protect children
from all forms of violence;
- Europe must become a corporal punishment
free zone;
- The best interests of affected children
should be the primary consideration in
all policies and individual decisions
on action to prevent and respond to violence
against children;
- Governments must listen to children
and take their views into account when
they decide on anti-violence action;
- Schools, the health service and social
services need to be mobilized to teach
adults that violence against children
is wrong;
- Children should learn how to solve conflicts
non-violently. They should learn about
sexual responsibility and consent at school;
- All deaths and serious injury to children
in the home should be routinely and rigorously
investigated;
- Anyone working in child protection should
be properly paid, trained and subject
to ethical codes;
- Courts should set up child-friendly
ways of taking evidence;
- Regional and international human rights
mechanisms should be open to children.
For instance, they should be able to bring
cases to the Court of Human Rights;
- Child victims/survivors of violence
must have ready access to free treatment
focused on rehabilitation and reintegration;
- Journalists should play their part in
showing the extent of the problem, not
just sensationalizing individual cases;
- European countries need to be made more
aware of harmful traditional practices.
References
Child Abuse and Neglect
in Romanian Families, a National Prevalence
Study 2000, National Authority for Child
Protection and Adoption (WHO and World
Bank), Bucharest, 2002.
Child sexual abuse in
Europe, coordinated by Corinne May-Chahal
and Maria Herczog, Council of Europe Publishing,
Strasbourg, 2003.
Country Programme Action
Plan to Reduce Harm and Exploitation of
Children in Tajikistan, UNICEF and National
Commission on Child Protection.
Innocenti Report Card
No. 5, A league table of child maltreatment
deaths in rich nations, UNICEF Innocenti
Research Centre, Florence, 2003.
Responses to the governmental
questionnaire circulated by the UN Study
on Violence Against Children.
Research on scale of
punitive violence against children in
the region summarized by Global Initiative
to End All Corporal Punishment of Children;
see http://www.endcorporalpunishment.org
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