Child Protection of Children Suffering with Mental Abuse

Mental abuse is invisible to the people. The reason is that the person could not express and share his or her mental condition, they constantly live in the trauma being tortured by someone. Emotionally abused children are worried and socially inhibited. The reason that lead them towards emotional breakdown is distance from their parents or guardian, because of this they act like an adult to pretend they are mature enough and act inappropriate immature. Violence against a child is increasing and getting worst. In the result parents are just giving traumatized and emotionally abused children to the society.

Introduction

Mental child abuse is mistreatment with a child that results in diminish growth and development in the personality. Victims are criticized by the abusers through words, actions, indifferences, rejection and ignorance. They don’t need to hit them physically but they tortured them with all these factors. Because of its invisibility it is difficult to identify this but on the other hand in our society the term “Mental Abuse” has no existence due to lake of awareness and lake of acceptance regarding mental health either for adults or children. There are many national and international organizations are rising this issue in front of people by showing their serious concern regarding this and asking for strict actions to tackle the issue. Mostly this abuse take place in home from parents and maybe from care takers because children totally depends on them. It starts with not fulfill their basic needs and get neglect by parents.

In the development of a child, its family responsibility to meet their all spheres of life, like; health, education, emotional development, shelter, nutrition and safety. Mental torture hurts as much as physical or any torture hurts, usually it seems difficult to identify this because the marks are left inside the person and they don’t let them come out because they are afraid of being punished by their parents. Their inappropriate actions, lack of confidence, shyness and immature or more mature for the child’s age are the indicators of the mental child abuse. There are more factors as indicators of abuse such as; aggressiveness, loss of self-control on the situations, affection, sadness, poor relationships with family and friends, inflexibility in life, anti-social behavior and exceptional fears for the child’s age. In the school environment bullying is also an important factor of mental abuse. It includes spreading lies and fake rumors about him or her, hitting, kicking, pushing and threatening among other students. In Pakistan 46% children are emotionally abused, unfortunately this abuse is started from home and their abusers are free from any punishment. In this alarming situation there are many factors that are responsible for this but most important factor is “Culture”. Any society in the world has its own culture that set their way of living, their beliefs and behavior. It tells how people should treat themselves and others in the society by fulfilling their expectations.

Basically, culture defines acceptance and rejection of certain attitude, behavior and practices in the society. In Pakistan to hit a child, to bully and to pressurize a child regarding education, career, financial stability, marital status and living standards is a part of the culture. These are the factors of their brought-up since day one to build a perfect child but on the other hand intentionally or non-intentionally they abuse a child whether physical abuse or mental abuse and forget that they are humans not a machine that don’t need to produce only materialistic luxuries by investing their strength, emotions, happiness and their feelings as a raw material. The reason of increasing this trauma lack of awareness in the society because it’s a taboo to talk about depression, anxiety and mental health. Illiteracy has an important role in child’s abusive life because it will lead unemployment then unemployment will lead poverty and because of this parents get frustrated and it increases the risk of violence in the family then it grows one family to another and then to the society. Research shows majority of parents are unaware of their unrealistic expectations from their children that shows irritation towards them, they become less supportive and cold to them. Societal force can help to reduce this trauma by creating social welfare system in the society. This network can give protection, support, can provide safety network to whom they can trust and can have healthy conversation and can show quick response to this crime by creating safety justice system for the children and it will help to grow mentality stable and confident child to the society.

Objectives of The Study

The purpose of the proposal to diagnose the reasons, behavior of parents and society’s responsibility behind the child mental abuse are following:

• Identify the victims of the psychological maltreatment.
• Spread awareness in the society about aspects of the child abuse.
• To examine the trauma by creating safety network.
• Organize a healthy relationship between parents and children.
• Mentally abused children and adults deserve medical facilities to come out from this trauma.
• Don’t ignore sudden deaths in children despite ignorance review their medical history and use them as an evidence to tackle the crime and the criminal.
• Teach people to accept cultural changes in society.
• Don’t hesitate to report violence and empower themselves to take action against this crime.
• Build family trust, loyalty, support and acceptance in different aspects of life.
• Don’t let people ignore this issue by considering it “taboo”. Even though highlight this harmful invisible acts to prevent children.

Rationale

Still there is no standardized research declared about rate of mental child abuse and neglecting because they are increasing due to many reasons like poverty, education, cultural values, lake of awareness, unemployment, violence, population, laws and delay in reporting such incidents. These news usually just circulate in newspaper by local public and just on news channels but don’t get highlighted to get into proper investigation procedure. This study will contribute to tackle the reasons to control this abuse by giving solutions regarding human psychology of acceptance this change with different perspectives. This study will examine the characteristics of population, age, gender, ethnicity, location, education level and income to identify the gap between families and a child, child and society behavior. It will contribute to enhance family environment towards healthy, peaceful, joyful and in happy way of their precious lives. This study will take part to study the child’s thought of mind, parental self-esteem, family functioning and strong relationship between child and parents.

Literature Review

The findings disclose that 84% Pakistani children face mental abuse by their parents in different ways. 74% children face physical violence and 3% children face sexual abuse, these abuses also a reason of mental health violence.20,000-40,000 children are involved in prostitution due to poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, lack of trust and many more, these factors are interdependent in the society. In 2017-18, Sahil an NGO observed 91 National and local newspapers and they were 3445 cases of child abuse. They mentioned 9% increasing ratio of registered cases of murder after the sexual abuse. This is not just limited to Pakistan, even though developed countries also facing this abuse in their society. The study shows that in USA there are more than 3 million reported cases of child abuse and neglect (CAN), because of this every year 2000 deaths happen. CAN include physical and sexual abuse as well and stated that in emotional neglect nearly 80% abusers were parents. Unfortunately this miserable act has become global problem. In New Delhi the rate of child abuse is 83% (72% boys and 65% girls) and 89% of the crimes take place by their family members. This issue is attacking globally and in every society parents, teachers, NGO’s, police and low enforcing agencies should take part to overcome the situations. These actions can give confidence to children and adults to talk openly about their mental health.

Research Conducted of Mental Child Abuse

Number of researches have been published in many countries. They contribute for guiding communities and clear path for sociologists, state, law enforcement agencies and activists of the country. It helps to spread awareness among youngsters, adults, parents and professionals.

“Examined the emotional abuse and its impact on children. The experiences of abuse and neglect can impede the attachment process and decrease the youngsters’ feelings of security and trust in their caregivers. Because of the maltreatment, children feel unworthy, unloved, and view the world as a dangerous, unhappy place. When their caregivers are neglectful, uncaring, and abusive, the children become more vulnerable to the stressors of life and will have difficulties in forming close and positive relationships with others. The unmet needs of the child victims may result in anger and resentment of their caregivers and these responses may then transfer to other relationships in their lives” (Zeanah, 1993)

“There were higher substantiations of neglect where mothers have been subjected to domestic violence” (Smith et al, 1995) & (Zuravin et al, 1997)

“In general, violence in the community is highly visible and often labeled as a crime as compared to violence in domestic spheres which is less visible” (Daily times, 2018)

“Examined domestic violence and its impact on child. Domestic violence adds to the risk of neglect over and above the risk of other maltreatment” (Beldzeman et al, 2001)

“In a case-control design of 203 neglectful mothers, substance abuse emerged as the strongest predictor of neglect status among low Socio-Economic Status (SES) women, ahead of depression, lack of social support 76 and negative life events. Substance abuse was also the strongest predictor of parental disposition and adequacy of the home environment” (Ondersma, 2002)

“Children who experience enriching environment view that world as safe and exciting place to learn and explore” (Delancy, 1998)

“Consequences may range from mild feelings of fear, shame, guilt or isolation to severe and serious anxiety or depression” (Wolfe et al., 2001; Russell, Springer, & Greenfield, 2010)

“They also tend to develop some behavioural problems include eating disorders, school dropout, suicide attempts, delinquency, violence, and substance use in later life” (McCabe et al., 2005; Fergusson & Horwood, 1998).

Methodology

Numerous analysts in different fields are looking for answers for social issues through political and authentic measures; be that as it may, solid arrangements still can't seem to be displayed. Further, our general public offers answers for its issues by thinking about its sort of social issues. At the end of the day, to take care of the issues, as opposed to analyzing general problem arrangements, society ought to examine the attributes of social issues. In this examination a writing survey and dissected the strategies for taking care of social issues. The characterization of social issues was then additionally subdivided into classifications for scholarly purposes and those pertinent to national arrangements. At long last, I built up a system procedure for social arrangements.

As enthusiasm among specialists and approach producers has developed over the most recent ten years, racial disproportionality has been analyzed and reported exactly utilizing regulatory informational collections, essentially. The benefit of an exact investigation of disproportionality is that it gives target discoveries viewing such significant issues as the frequency and pervasiveness of disproportionality, or can report slants after some time. The restriction of utilizing regulatory information to get disproportionality, in any case, is that it doesn't give proof of the setting in which the wonders happen. In particular, authoritative informational collections don't take into account the plausibility of connecting results of enthusiasm, for instance, the quantity of minority kids in child care at an offered time, to the procedures that impact them, for example, laborer discernments and organization rehearses. This investigation was planned as an initial phase in understanding the setting in which disproportionality happens from the point of view of those creation the choices. The examination group involved specialists from Caliber Associates and Howard University, a verifiable dark school. Bore Associates worked with personnel from Howard University's School of Social Work since its strategic the mastery of the staff in the welfare of African-American youngsters.

Furthermore, an examination individual with the Administration for Children, Youth and Families' Child Outcomes Research and Evaluation division with mastery in African-American youngster welfare filled in as a colleague to the Federal Project Officer during the term of her cooperation yet remained as a colleague after her partnership ended. She is as of now an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. The undertaking includes two separate however related assignments. The primary exertion is to pick up contribution from the youngster welfare field on the issue of over-portrayal of African-American kids and families in the kid welfare framework. The investigation is intended to investigate the issue of disproportionality from the point of view of managers, chiefs, and direct-administration staff from youngster welfare and kid welfare related organizations, and their observations with respect to its roots, pervasiveness and tirelessness. In accordance with the examination's objective to pick up knowledge into the issue of racial disproportionality, the subsequent exertion is to analyze the techniques that kid welfare and kid welfare related offices are executing to address the issues of kids and groups of shading. In blend, these endeavors are intended to start to give direction and help to the kid welfare field and the Federal government identifying with so much issues as arrangement, practice, and focused on assets related with diminishing disproportionality, and the conveyance of proper and compelling administrations to youngster welfare included kids and groups of shading.

To meet the objectives of the examination, the group built up a complete subjective data gathering framework for on location usage with nine kid welfare offices. Utilizing this methodology enabled the group to accumulate point by point data about every organization, its staff, and accomplice offices, and furthermore to investigate the similitudes and contrasts among offices as far as the factors of premium. Site visits were the essential methods for gathering subjective information from every one of the partaking kid welfare offices, and were centered on leading top to bottom individual and gathering exchanges with youngster welfare and accomplice office staff, including directors, managers, case managers and other direct specialist organizations. Data accumulated through on location exchanges was enhanced by composed documentation, including strategy and procedural archives, hierarchical graphs, yearly budgetary and operational reports, and program-explicit pamphlets, manuals, and assessment reports, gave by office overseers or their delegates before the on location visit. This data was planned to furnish the group with a setting for every office, including such significant qualities as its strategic way of thinking, operational arrangements, and hierarchical structure.

Child Protection

Child protection is a concept to safe a child form economical, physical, neglect, less care and other harmful effects which are causes of this crime. Child protection agencies should report complain if they are verified and take action to protect them from an inappropriate treatment. Initially it would difficult while setting the strategies but they will work-out. They can take help and guidance to work on child protection through researches and definite data, it will help them in decision making. To protect a child, first victims should know their rights, for this state and activists should collaborate with each other to spread awareness among people. As a community, collaborate targeted population, schools, social media, social activists and families. School based programs may more effective because students get attach to their teachers, feel comfortable to share anything with them because they trust them and consider them their safety network. This program should take initiative to teach children how to identify maltreatment either with them or with someone else. Teach them how to tell any uncomfortable action to an adult and someone in their safety network.

Conclusion

In Pakistan, there is still lack of legal definition of child abuse, neglect and violence. Although, number of action plans, bill and act are present but there is no implementation to stop this abuse. They are very far in child protection. It is getting serious global mental problem. It is strange that mostly researches are done in developed countries, unfortunately their family hierarchy is also not perfect or idol for developing countries, but they have recognition of this phenomena among the public and professionals. For the relief from this trauma, effective prevention efforts and policies should directly address the victims. Their care-givers, public health researchers, practitioners, parents can play key role to understand what kind of surroundings they have. This is not only the state’s responsibility, parents and society is responsible too because they all are interrelated. This is everyone’s responsibility to ensure their rights, their welfare is protected, they are respectful person of the society, their lives are free from any fear, threat, hesitation, darkest secrets and fake personalities, and they are growing up in peace and worth living environment.