Examples Of Social Justice In Child Abuse

Social Justice in Child Abuse

Introduction

Information gathered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shows that 963,870 children were victims of some sort of abuse. Many irreproachable children are being mistreated by adults just because they were misbehaving. This will introduce the statistics on Child Abuse and sentinel injuries that cause this to happen.

The Statistics of Child Abuse

Statistics show that abuse has been an issue with parents harming their children as a punishment. This can lead to kids having a broken and damaged childhood. In the book, “Child Abuse,” it shows that “Parents are 22 times more likely to abuse their offspring if they live on less than $15,000 annually than are those who earn more than $30,000 per year” which leads to

some reasons why parents treat a child like that (Grapes 9). Parents who are paid less will most likely take out anger and added stress on their kids. Some parents and adults take punishments to the extremity, which hurts the child physically or mentally. Another statistic presents that ‘“[...] 6 percent to 62 percent females and 3 percent to 31 percent of males reporting to have experienced some form of sexual abuse”’ from a family member or an adult they knew(Grapes 30). By showing the percentage of people being sexually assaulted, there are more females being abused than males, which is also showing another social injustice because women are typically treated like “objects” or an “easy target” to catch. The misconduct of children has been a widespread outbreak that has affected several people around the world.

Sentinel Injuries Help Flag Child Abuse
Researchers find sentinel injuries that help flag child abuse. This tells you that there is an abundance of children around the world are rushed into hospitals because of parents harming their kids. The magazine article states “[...] more than 4 million patient visits for children under 24 months who were sent at 18 institutions between January 1, 2004 and December 1, 2011. Overall, 0.17% (7,602 visits) were associated with child abuse” (Haelle 1). It is showing that there are a lot of really young kids being abused by parents and other adults that might have a relationship with them. Some adults think that a form of abuse is like venting out all their stress and problems to their kid. “Today, many experts believe child abuse is widespread because society regards physical punishment by parents as a reasonable way of changing children’s behavior” even though this is really harming the child (Tollefson 1). Regardless of how much a parent abuses their child, it’s not going to necessarily change the child’s behavior. Child Abuse can be very harmful to the extremity that it will leave a scar or a broken lifestyle.

Literary Connection
In the novel, “To Kill A Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee, shows many social justice issues of Child Abuse.

There are a lot of forms of child abuse in the book because it was the time that parents could whip their kids without them going to jail. One of the things that happened to Scout was when“Miss Caroline stood back still, then grabbed me by the collar and hauled me back to her desk” (Lee 21). This part of the book was a major problem of this topic because nobody in that town considered that a form of abuse, but thought of it as giving the kids a “taste of their medicine.” Many parents and adults thought that their system of raising and teaching children was the “proper” way of doing things. When Miss Caroline told Scout“‘[to] tell [her] father not to teach [Scout] anymore and [...] [to] tell him [she’ll] take [...] over from here and try to undo the damage--”’ (Lee 17). It was a form of Child Abuse because it would've affected Scout mentally and the teacher feels like there is only one right way to teach a kid. Even if you say something to a child that could affect them, it will still be a form of Child

negligence.

Conclusion
Abusing children showed us statistics and sentinel injuries about this topic. An abundance of innocent children are being abused by parents as their punishment of misbehaving or not listening to them. Parents realize that this is wrong, but still needs to officially end in order for many children to have fewer hospital visits because of abuse.