| Popis: |
Child maltreatment may more easily occur in contexts where children's status is lower than that of adults. In these circumstances, children's rights to have a voice on issues that affect them and to human dignity and protection from all forms of degrading treatment, including lawful physical punishment, are customarily overlooked. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child frequently notes this in their periodic Concluding Comments to countries that have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) but failed to fully implement its principles. Prejudicial attitudes towards children, termed ‘childism’, though perhaps less apparent in some cultures than was previously observed, still persists, enhancing the risk of child abuse and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Children's subservience to and dependence on adults together with the silencing of children's voices also contribute to children's reluctance to disclose abuse, particularly when they are victims of sexual assault. Of immense concern, research suggests that children who experience poly-victimisation, including sexual assault, may then be more likely to perpetrate child sexual assault when they reach adolescence or adulthood. Primary prevention strategies that motivate more positive and respectful societal attitudes towards children also empower children to identify and talk without fear of disbelief or punishment about adults’ maltreatment of them are essential. These strategies, together with law reform that communicates a clear message that violence against children in any form and to any degree is not acceptable, may begin to reduce child maltreatment that adversely impacts not only vulnerable children but the adults that they will become. |
