Explain The Barriers Of Child Abuse

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Recommended: Current policies and procedures in relation to child protection

Barriers
In order to help victims of child abuse we need to find the children that are being abused. All abuse situations are not being reported by the victims or the witnesses of abuse. This is actually a major barrier when it comes to helping abused victims.
The victims often times do not report that they are being abused for many reasons. Children are often abused by people they know. The people who are supposed to take care of them are the ones that end up hurting them. One can only imagine the amount of distrust a child can grow for anyone, if their own family can abuse them. The lack of trust for authority figures is a barrier that children face when reporting their abuse. The shame and blame that the victims put on their selves is also a barrier. They might feel ashamed by what has been done to them. Children may also feel like they deserve the abuse because they are "bad." Even when children break through all these barriers and manage to tell an adult, there are instances where they are not believed. The adult may do nothing with this information and the child loses more hope in ever being saved. The adult may not report the abuse because they are not comfortable with the situation. This leads to even more underreporting. …show more content…

One reason is that the witness may fear retaliation from the abuser. Also they may be afraid to report suspicion of abuse and their suspicions are wrong. A false accusation can cause stress on the accused and the child. Someone may not report abuse because of their relationship they have with the abuser. The abuser could be a husband and the wife may be embarrassed to report her husband or fearful of divorce. Although I do not believe any of the above reasons for not reporting abuse is an actual excuse, we should take steps in helping people become more comfortable with reporting

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