Family Mental Health...

TITLE: CHILD ABUSE
BY WAISWA JACOB +256774336277, waiswajacobo@yahoo.co.uk
ORGANISED BY: RAISING-VOICES
○ 15/10/2007

Introduction:
Child abuse is mental or physical harm inflicted on a child. It carries the following forms; neglect, sex harassment, sex-rape and defilement, strong verbal insults and threats, denial of protection andopportunities for intellectual development, child-soldiering, child-trafficking and trade, child-labour and prostitution etcetera –with all the forms of abuse being used in reference to persons under the age of eighteen (18), hence; is the term child abuse. The media has played a bid role in exposing evils against children, while many other abusive acts have been witnessed in the community. Notably, none of them occur in rural areas, but rather in urban localities. That is; in towns and suburbs. There are various reasons, perceptions, assumptions for child abuse along with preventive mechanisms as seen below;

What can be experienced?

Parent or guardian bullying child: A parent or guardian begins his or her day by locating the child to bully. In case it a working guardian, he or she would return from work anxious to resume part-two of the day’s bullying sessions to the discomfort of the child. The child only experiences relief only when the tormenting guardian is away for work, and terribly gets filled with worries towards arrival time of trouble-some parent. Parent bullying could carry the forms of high-pitched rebukes and accusations accompanied by beating any part of the child’s body –a practice which takes years in the life of the child and leading to mental and physical disabilities that affect academic progress, occupation and interpersonal or social interaction, negatively.

Child labeling: Labeling child with any sort of evil references, anything bad that can be thought about or imagined within home and to visitors who come home. When introductions are being made of house members, horrible names would be formed for reference to the abused child, while other members are praised and flattered as superior academically and occupationally. When the labeled child accepts references to him or her, suddenly academic and occupational progress are undermined and therefore; affection his or her growth and development.

Discrimination and segregation: Special treatment is given to other loved and cared for children but not for the abused child in usage of house-hold items, purchase of basic necessities like clothes and in payment of school fees. There are no equal opportunities for all the children at home. For example; house-hold items like watching television (TV), switching it (TV) on, eating time –where the abused child eats last while the “real” children eat first and sleep early to prepare for morning classes, school fees for the abused is paid last if lucky while in many cases costs accumulate without payment etcetera.

Heavy work or chores at home: While the loved children or “white lambs” receive kingly treatment, the abused child is subjected to heavy work-load. He or she is woken very early in the morning at 3am to prepare morning tea, iron school uniforms, wake up the white lambs, bathe and cloth them, and wash all clothes in the house. Its clocks 8am still attending to chores yet he or she must prepare to go to school: and before then, he or she must first take the white lambs to school. The abused child arrives at his or her won school at 10am and gets punished for the reason beyond him or her. But, even at school, he or she has no money for lunch or break fast. So, the whole day is spent hungry –both in class and class-breaks. It turns evening, the time for departure back home, filled with worries as if the best home and brothers or sisters were school-mates and classmates, while the best parents where class-teachers. As if the early morning schedule was not heavy enough, the abused child prepares for another heavy duty. That is; wash used plates, cook evening tea, iron all washed clothes, cook supper in the shortest time possible because the white lambs must sleep early to be fresh for school the next day, and washing used utensils after supper before getting the privilege to sleep. Such, not only affect academic performance but also make child develop negative attitude towards work by viewing it as a form of mistreatment.

Deliberate denial of food and other basic development needs: The abused child or “black sheep” is constantly denied basic survival needs as means of fighting the absentee mother of the child who may have separated from the child’s father or as a struggle to solve the unresolved conflicts with the departed mother of the child either through death or divorce and separation. In some instances, the child’s hunger for food could be used to kill him or her by poisoning. By making sure that there is no access to food for the abused, foodstuffs are strictly kept in a food store, with padlocks well-placed, where only the white lambs go or can have access to the keys. Such treatment would not only cause malnutrition, but also constant healthy problems due to diseases and resulting from weak immune system.

The above revelations about the difficult life abused children go through clearly shows high level of enslavement similar to what Israelites went through. But, as the Bible teaches, the enslaved soon find deliverance and gain high status among communities. This means no one is created by God to be mistreated and He punishes those who mistreat others, as was the case with Egypt .
Existing Assumptions and Perception of Child Abuse:

There are different perceptions of child abuse both at homes and at schools. In homes, they say: it is a punishment for problem children, who are later taken for abused children; and that what is called child-labor or heavy chores at home is actually informal training to be hard-working and responsible citizens in the country.

While at school, what is called corporal punishment (a form of child abuse), is really disciplining the child towards behaving acceptably in accordance to both school rules and social norms, where the otherwise (misbehaviors) are totally unacceptable. It is complimented by the Biblical teaching that: “if you hold back the rod or beating-stick, you spoil the child.” And, in most cases, schools and homes make alliances to effectively punish the child.

Some of assumptions about child abuse are that: it takes place in a step child-step parent relationship; common among the modern times urban dwellers than the traditional family and rural systems; abused children are big-headed, very difficult to look-after; abused children are disabled or ugly with no future or no need to waste time “unprofitably” to look after them; the parents are uneducated, school drop-outs, of low socio-economic class, characterized by poor housing and lacking parental skills.

Known Reasons for Child Abuse:

The reasons for child abuse basically revolve around: child characteristics like being ugly, disabled or too thin and with behavior problems; parental characteristics like having begun rearing children at a tender age, which is a child to child affair rather than parent to child; having been abused by their parents before parenting life – learned experience which is transformed in the life of the parents when they get their own children; and inadequacy to amicably provide for the kids which would like neglect; poverty and poor housing which makes provision of child basics more of a dream than a reality; inadequate education which never allows them a chance to respect rights of others value for life as well as find career opportunities to help improve on family life; alcohol and domestic violence in which children become part of the harmful consequences –both psychological and physical; and, divorce and separation, which displaces hate of the divorced or divorcee onto the child or either party.
A number of ways can be adopted to prevent child abuse. Among them, the following are pertinent to note: promoting education for all in order to increase career opportunities and fight poverty that tend to be an influence over child abuse; encouraging family stability through enacting the domestic relation’s bill to save wives from husbands’ unending greed that soon result into divorce or separation and disappearing of parental love for children –sometimes called bastards, and encouraging Christianity or religiousness to promote agape love for children regardless of whom they belong to; sensitizing the communities about child abuse being unnecessary evil that must be fought or condemned through policy, decree or legislation; training expectant mothers in parenthood or parenting skills; improving on household incomes to reduce on parenting stress that could be misplaced onto children leading into abuse and neglect; integrating childhood and neglect into the school curriculum to completely erode off child abuse evil out of vocabulary in the generations to come and promotion of human rights subject in communities as well as adult literacy and training programmes.

In conclusion, is the assertion that child abuse as an extreme evil with far reaching consequences on child development in the areas of academic, occupation and social interactions -showing serious inadequacies and under-achievement that forms a cyclic path in the life of the abused child, which unless he or she is rehabilitated through psychological therapeutic programmes, some of the cases may lead in death or permanent derangement. Communities must, therefore, rise to stop violence against children and report existing cases to authorities early enough, while government must enact enabling laws as well as embark training programmes aimed at completely eradicating the crime of violence on children.

W.J. waiswajacobo@yahoo.co.uk