According to the World Health Organization, 1.2 billion boys and girls experience violence in their homes every year: the WHO report cites 58 countries analyzed where 17% of children experienced some form of abuse in the last month, including blows to the head, face, or ears, or repeated and severe beatings. The psychological impact includes anxiety, depression, loss of self-esteem, and emotional instability, leading to addictions, mental disorders, and even suicidal behavior. Globally, these abused children are more likely to become aggressive, fail at school, and engage in violent, antisocial, or criminal behavior.
In Italy, Sant’Andrea Hospital recently found that child abuse is on the rise and that “in 70% of cases, the perpetrator is a parent.” The hospital compiled a report based on child visits to the emergency room, stating that “abuse occurs primarily within the home”: physical, verbal, and sexual assaults, but also incidents of witnessed violence, of which girls are the victims in more than half of cases (58.2%). Another very important finding concerns the perpetrators of child abuse. In 92.7% of incidents, the violence was perpetrated by a single aggressor, and in more than 70% of cases, it was a parent. Very often, the abuse occurred in the presence of one or more witnesses (69.4%), within the victim’s home (61.8%), or in the context of an argument (70.9%). Why does violence against children remain largely unrecognized and unpunished, and why is its structural dynamics linked to domestic violence against mothers not addressed? Click on the full video on the cover.
