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ARCHIVE OF PAST NEWS
Should Children Exposed to Family Violence
Be Considered Maltreated?
A growing body of research has revealed that many
children are affected
by exposure to adult domestic violence. A heated national debate is
emerging around the question of whether children exposed to such
violence should be defined as maltreated.
Click
here for the entire article.
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Parental
Substance Abuse A Major Factor
In
Child Abuse And Neglect
Parental substance abuse is a major factor contributing to child abuse and neglect. This connection is
from the Child Welfare League of America
(CWLA).
Click here for summary of
findings.
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How
Much Does a Child Cost in the United States?
You
may have seen a breakdown of the cost of raising a child, but this is a
summary of the cost versus reward ratio.
The U.S. government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from
birth to 18 and came up with $160,140.00 for a middle-income family. Talk
about sticker shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition. To parents,
that figure leads to wild fantasies about all the money one could have
banked if not for (insert your child's name here). For others, that number
might confirm the decision to remain childless.
But $160,140.00 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into
$8,896.66 a year, $741.38 a month, or $171.08 a week. That's a mere $24.44
a day! Just over a dollar an hour. Still, if one wants to be
"rich", one might think the best financial advice is not to have
children.
But the best advice is just the opposite.
What do your get for your $160,140.00?
* Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
* Glimpses of God every day.
* Giggles under the covers every night.
* More love than your heart can hold.
* Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
* A hand to hold, usually covered with jam.
* A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites, building
sandcastles, and skipping down the sidewalk in the pouring rain.
* Someone to laugh yourself silly with no matter what the boss said
or how your stocks performed that day.
For $160,140.00 you never have to grow up. You get to finger-paint, carve
pumpkins, play hide-and-seek, catch lightning bugs, and never stop
believing in Santa Claus.
You
have an excuse to keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh, watching
Saturday morning cartoons, going to Disney movies, and wishing on
stars.
You
get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and
collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in
clay for Mother's Day, and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.
For $160,140.00 there is no greater bang for your buck.
You
get to be a hero just for retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof, taking
the training wheels off the bike, removing a splinter, filling the wading
pool, coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that
never wins but always gets treated to ice cream, regardless.
You
get a front row seat to history to witness the first step, first word,
first bra, first date, and first time behind the wheel.
You
get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called
grandchildren.
You
get an education in psychology, nursing, fairness, justice,
communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.
In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there with God.
You
have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the
bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever,
and love them without limits, so that one day they will, like you, love
without counting the cost.
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Helping Parents Recognize
Child Abuse
The Nemours Foundation's Web site, kidshealth.org,
helps families answer a wide range of health and wellness questions. In
its area for parents, a new article describes how to recognize signs of
child abuse.
In defining the four types of abuse--physical,
physical neglect, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse--the article details
specific actions taken by the perpetrator to harm the child. Shaken
baby/shaken impact syndrome, which is the leading cause of death in child
abuse cases in the United States, is also listed as a specific form of
child abuse. Besides physical signs of abuse, such as bruises, black eyes,
and broken bones, parents are cautioned to look for less obvious
behavioral signs of abuse.
The article instructs parents about what steps to
take if abuse is suspected and how to get help for themselves if they are
the abuser. It discusses the importance of raising awareness in children,
so they know how to recognize and report abuse. Tips are also provided to
help a child heal from an abusive experience, including seeking medical
and psychological help.
Accompanying the article are a list of related
KidsHealth.org stories on helping your child cope with night terrors,
bullying, stress, anxiety, fears, and phobias. Links to other
organizations for additional information on child abuse prevention are
also provided.
Recognizing Signs of Child Abuse is available
online at: http://kidshealth.org/parent/emotions/feelings/signs_child_abuse.html
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National
statistics
indicate a decline
in
child abuse and neglect
National
statistics continue to indicate a decline in child abuse and neglect, the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported in April.
States
had reported that just over 900,000 children were victims of child
maltreatment in 1998. That number dropped to 826,000 in 1999.
The
incidence rate of children victimized by maltreatment also declined to
11.8 per 1,000 children, a decrease from the 1998 rate of 12.6 per 1,000.
In a trend that began six years ago, the number of victimized children has
decreased approximately 19.2 percent from a record of 1,018,692 in 1993.
Parents continue to be the main perpetrators of child maltreatment.
"We
are encouraged by the continuing decline in the number of children who are
maltreated, but it is nevertheless unacceptable that so many children are
suffering," said HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson. "We will continue
to encourage States to do everything they can to prevent child abuse and
neglect. We must remain committed to ensuring that all children live in
safe, permanent and loving homes."
The
complete findings of States' Reports to the National Child Abuse and
Neglect Data System (NCANDS) are published in "Child Maltreatment
1999." The report is
available on the Children's Bureau Web site:
(http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/publications)
For a
print copy, contact the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect
Information by phone at 800-FYI-3366 or by e-mail at nccanch@calib.com.
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Summary Report of New Study in
Britain
on Child Abuse
and Domestic Violence
Women who are physically and/or
sexually abused in childhood are at risk of being victims of abuse as
adults, according to a study in the August 11, 2001 edition of the medical
journal, The Lancet (Vol. 358). Relation Between Childhood Sexual and
Physical Abuse and Risk of Revictimisation in Women: A Cross-Sectional
Survey explores the link between child abuse and domestic and sexual
violence in adult life, finding that child abuse “substantially
increases” the risk of revictimization in adulthood.
The study – written by Jeremy Coid, Ann Petruckevitch, Gene Feder, Wai-Shan
Chung, Jo Richardson and Stirling Moorey – is based on a survey of 1,207
women between the ages of 16 and 85 years old who attended primary care
practices in East London. The survey assessed the prevalence of
self-reported childhood and adult abusive and traumatic experiences,
measured the association between childhood and adult abuse, tested for
associations between different forms of abuse and identified key factors
in the relationship between childhood and adult abuse.
The survey asked the women about their experiences with child abuse and
domestic and sexual violence in adult life. Twenty percent of women
surveyed reported experiencing unwanted sexual intercourse or sexual
activities but not intercourse during childhood; 17 percent reported being
severely beaten by a parent or caregiver on at least one occasion as a
child. Forty-one percent of women survey reported experiencing domestic
violence and 17 percent reported being raped or the victim of sexual
assault as an adult.
Findings
The study concludes that “childhood abuse is independently associated
with adult abuse and trauma.” All three types of child abuse –
unwanted sexual intercourse, unwanted sexual activity and physical abuse
– are “associated with an increased risk of adult abuse.” The study
also finds specific links between each form of child abuse and different
types of abuse in adult life.
Severe abuse in childhood, defined in the study as unwanted sexual
intercourse and being severely beaten, is “associated with”
generalized adult abuse. The study finds that victims of severe childhood
abuse are at increased risk to experience both sexual and physical abuse
in adulthood. Less severe experiences of childhood abuse are
“specifically associated” with similar forms of abusive experience in
adulthood, according to the study. Victims of unwanted sexual activity but
not intercourse in childhood are more likely to be victims of rape, sexual
assault and other trauma in adulthood. But, the study finds that unwanted
sexual activity in childhood is not “specifically associated” with
domestic violence in adult life.
Preventing Abuse
Victims of abuse during childhood are at risk for revictimization as
adults, concludes the study, which calls for more research to explore the
link between the two. The study highlights the need for health care
providers and their patients to discuss abuse in both childhood and adult
life.
“Childhood experiences are infrequently reported to health care
professionals, and the contribution of multiple abuse to adult
psychopathology can be missed,” it says. “When these women present to
services for help with the sequelae of childhood abuse as adults,
clinicians might not realise that abuse and trauma might currently be
taking place or that these women continue to be at high risk of abuse in
the future.”
Once more is known about the relation between child abuse and domestic and
sexual violence in adult life, effective intervention and prevention
programs can be developed. The study concludes with a call for more
research to “investigate therapeutic interventions for girls and young
women who have experienced childhood abuse and are at risk of abuse in
adulthood.”
Reprinted and adapted from
October
18, 2001 'News Flash' at:
http://www.fvpf.org/newsflash an online newsletter of the Family Violence Prevention
Fund.
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USA TODAY
Editorial on March 22, 2002
Why exempt churches
from reporting
child abuse?
Among the most disturbing
facts in the trials of sexually abusive priests in Massachusetts and
California is that other priests, even bishops, knew yet didn't contact
law-enforcement authorities. Instead, they were silent as children continued
to suffer.
Click
here for the entire editorial.
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Rash of Wife Killings Stuns Ft. Bragg
By
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
FORT BRAGG, N.C., July 26 (AP) —
Three veterans of the war in Afghanistan and a fourth soldier have killed
their wives in the Fort Bragg area in the last six weeks, the Army said
today as it announced a re-evaluation of the base's family counseling
program.
"It's
mind-boggling," said Henry Berry, manager of family advocacy programs
at Fort Bragg. "We're going to look at these cases to prevent them
from happening in the future."
Click here for
the entire article.
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Combat Vets Most Prone To Domestic Abuse
Yale study looks at homefront effects
of war on men, society
By Randy Dotinga
HealthScoutNews Reporter
(HealthScoutNews) -- Two decades after the Vietnam War, a new study concludes that male veterans who spent time in
combat were more than four times as likely as other men to engage in domestic violence.
The Yale University researchers also found that combat vets were at much higher risk for divorce, depression and unemployment.
Click here for
the entire article.
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Prevalence of Domestic
Violence
Excerpts from article* in
the
May/June 2001 edition of Women s
Health Issues
The Journal of the
Jacobs Institute of Women s Health
Nearly one-third of American women (31 percent) report
being
physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point
in their lives, according to the Commonwealth Fund Survey.
Nationally, an estimated 36 million women have experienced violence,
either as a child or an adult, the article says.
This estimate is based on statistics from the Commonwealth
Fund Survey, which found that four in ten women (43.7 percent) age 18
through 64 report experiencing at least one type of violence, at least
once, in their lifetime. This includes intimate partner violence,
physical assault, sexual assault/rape and child abuse.
Of the 43.7 percent of women who have experienced violence, 18.5 percent
experience sexual abuse or violence committed by an intimate (this
estimate includes domestic violence as well as child abuse by a relative);
and 20.8 percent experience physical, non-sexual violence (this includes
domestic violence and child abuse).
Prevalence of Violence also addresses the link between child abuse
and domestic violence. Women who were abused as children are
"significantly more likely" than other women to experience adult
violence, the article finds.
Sixty-six percent of women who were abused as children
report experiencing domestic violence, compared with 28 percent of women
who did not experience child abuse.
* Written by Stacey B.
Plichta, ScD, College of Health Sciences, Old Dominion University and
Marilyn Falik, PhD, MDS Associates.
To receive a copy of Prevalence of
Violence, send your fax number or mailing address to Mariama Diao via
email at:
speakingup@prsolutionsdc.com or
by fax to: 202/371-9142.
For more information on the Jacobs
Institute of Women s Health, visit its website at: www.jiwh.org
Reprinted and adapted from
'News Flash' at:
http://www.fvpf.org/newsflash an online newsletter of the Family Violence Prevention
Fund.
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DOMESTIC ABUSE CAN BE
TORTURE
ACCORDING
TO AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
For the first time, an
international human rights organization has
defined domestic violence as a form of torture and a violation of
international law. In a report issued around the world on March 6,
Amnesty International (AI) declared that violence against women is
a
human rights issue, and if a government fails to "prevent, prosecute
and punish" acts of violence, that violence should be considered
torture.
Broken Bodies, Shattered Minds: Torture and Ill-Treatment of Women explores
the circumstances in which violence against women, in custody and in the
home, constitutes torture. It concludes that governments should be
held accountable for violence against women, regardless of where it
occurs.
As part of its campaign to end torture, AI holds states accountable
for all acts of torture of women, whatever the context in which they
are committed and whoever is the perpetrator.
Violence Against Women
Violence against women is a "global phenomenon" and throughout
the world, women are victims of torture and abuse, finds Broken Bodies, Shattered Minds. "Pervasive gender discrimination underlies the
torture of women," said Sheila Dauer, Director of Amnesty
International USA's Women's Human Rights Program. "When women
are not equal participants in society, fully protected by their laws and
their governments, they are especially vulnerable to violence and
abuse."
Broken Bodies, Shattered Minds explores the extent of torture in the home
(domestic violence), in forced marriages, in the name of
"honor," among trafficked women, and of women in debt bondage.
It finds that "women's greatest risk of violence comes from men they
know, often male family members or husbands."
Recommendations for Change
Broken Bodies, Shattered Minds offers recommendations for all
governments - including the U.S. federal and state governments - to
implement through laws to improve the condition of women and to stop violence
against women.
AI calls on all
governments to:
Condemn all acts of violence against women; Prohibit acts of violence against women and establish adequate legal protection against such acts;
Investigate all allegations of violence against women;
Prosecute and punish crimes of violence against women; Recognize and
provide assistance to human rights defenders.
Broken Bodies, Shattered Minds is available online at www.aiusa.org.
"Reprinted and adapted/excerpted
from 'News Flash', an online newsletter of the Family Violence Prevention
Fund.(FVPF)" To read full text as reported by FVPF, go to: (http://www.fvpf.org/newsflash)
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First
Lady of the United States
Speaks
Out On Plight of Afghan Women
"Afghan women know, through hard experience, what the
rest of the
world is discovering: the brutal oppression of women is a central goal
of the terrorists. Long before the current war began, the Taliban and
its terrorist allies were making the lives of children and women in
Afghanistan miserable The severe repression and brutality against
women in Afghanistan is not a matter of legitimate religious practice.
Muslims around the world have condemned the brutal degradation of
women and children by the Taliban regime. The poverty, poor health
and illiteracy that the terrorists and the Taliban have imposed on
women in Afghanistan do not conform with the treatment of women in
most of the Islamic world, where women make important contributions in
their societies.
All of us have an obligation to speak out. We may
come from different backgrounds and faiths - but parents the world
over love our children. We respect our mothers, our sisters and
daughters. Fighting brutality against women and children is not the
expression of a specific culture; it is the acceptance of our common
humanity - a commitment shared by people of good will on every
continent The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights
and dignity of women."
-- Laura Bush, Radio Address to the Nation, November 17, 2001.
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President Bush Speaks Out
About Domestic Violence
The social blight of domestic
violence has continued to burden America into the 21st Century. Our
homes should be places of safety and comfort. Tragically, domestic
violence can and does turn many homes into places of torment. The
grim facts speak for themselves: almost one-third of American women
murdered each year are killed by their current or former partners, usually
a husband. Approximately 1 million women annually report being
stalked. And many children suffer or witness abuse in their homes,
which can sadly spawn legacies of violence in families across America.
Domestic violence spills over
into schools and places of work; and it affects people from every walk of
life. Though abuse may occur in the seclusion of a private residence, its
effects scar the face of our Nation.
In the United States, we have
strict laws intended to hold domestic abusers accountable for their vile
conduct by bringing them to justice, but laws alone are not enough. A
comprehensive, coordinated approach must shape our strategy to reduce
domestic violence. Accordingly, the Federal Government is partnering with
States, local communities, and other entities to implement tough and
effective mechanisms to respond to reports of domestic violence.
These efforts include specialized
units in police departments, and prosecutors offices that work with local
victims' advocates to make the criminal justice system more responsive to
victims and more retributive to their abusers. Jurisdictions
throughout the country now provide legal assistance to ensure that when
victims try to escape abuse, they can obtain legal help from attorneys who
understand the dynamics of domestic violence. Law enforcement
officers, prosecutors, court personnel, and service providers are working
to improve their responses to the often hidden victims of elder abuse and
violence against women with disabilities. Moreover, thousands of
communities now have shelters and emergency services for abused women and
their children.
As a Nation, we must prioritize
addressing the problem of domestic violence in our communities every day
of the year. National Domestic Violence Awareness Month provides us with a
special opportunity to emphasize that domestic violence is a crime, to
warn abusers that they will be prosecuted, and to offer victims more aid
and support. We can and must radically reduce and work to eliminate this
scourge from our land. To succeed, this effort must be echoed by
officials from every segment of the criminal justice system, Federal,
State, and local. Community leaders, health care professionals, teachers,
employers, friends, and neighbors all will play an important role in
eradicating domestic violence.
I call on all Americans to commit to
preventing domestic violence and to assist those who suffer from it. These
collective efforts will contribute to peace in our homes, schools, places
of work, and communities and will help ensure the future safety of
countless children and adults.
I urge all Americans to learn more about this terrible
problem and to take positive action in protecting communities and families
from its devastating effects.
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"I Got Flowers Today"
I got flowers today. It wasn't my birthday or any other special day.
We had our first argument last night, and he said a lot of cruel things
that really hurt me.
I know he is sorry and didn't mean the things he said,
because he sent me flowers today.
I got flowers today. It wasn't our anniversary
or any other special day.
Last night, he threw me into a wall and started to choke me.
It seemed like a nightmare. I couldn't believe it
was real.
I woke up this morning sore and bruised all over.
I know he must be sorry, because he sent me flowers today.
I got flowers today, and it wasn't Mother's Day
or any other special day.
Last night, he beat me up again. And it was much worse
than all the other times.
If I leave him, what will I do?
How will I take care of my kids?
What about money? I'm afraid of him and scared to leave.
But I know he must be sorry,
Because he sent me flowers today.
I got flowers today.
Today was a very special day.
It was the day of my funeral.
Last night, he finally killed me.
He beat me to death.
If only I had gathered enough courage and strength to leave him,
I would not have gotten flowers today.
STOP FAMILY VIOLENCE TODAY!
DO NOT TOLERATE IT IN YOUR
FAMILY!
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Updated
01 May 2008
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