NCJ Number
218952
Journal
Child Abuse & Neglect Volume: 31 Issue: 5 Dated: May 2007 Pages: 473-477
Date Published
May 2007
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This article reviews research on childhood victimization and offers five main recommendations on improving child protection among member states of the United Nations.
Abstract
The main argument is that while there has been an increased awareness and commitment to child protection among member states of the United Nations (U.N.), there continues to be a substantial gap between internationally and nationally stated intentions for child protection and the actual effectiveness of programs targeting child protection. The author argues that it was this failure to protect children around the world from abuse, neglect, and exploitation that led to the U.N. Secretary General’s Study on Violence Against Children. Given the findings of this study, the author recommends several reforms in terms of both long- and short-term social practices for child protection. These recommendations include: (1) establishing stronger encouragement for well-targeted social system interventions; (2) providing investigative and therapeutic services to children with social and personal problems; (3) applying a multidimensional system of treatment to prevent violence against children and to reduce or modify the effects of any existing risk factors; (4) establishing human needs fulfillment as a basic goal of childrearing; and (5) using a comprehensive human rights approach to child protection work. The study highlighted the significant problem of the revictimization of children. That is, children who have been previously victimized are significantly more likely to be revictimized during the subsequent year than children who have never been victimized. The authors of the study show that childhood victimization is both diverse and repetitive and they suggest that the relationship between victimization and revictimization may be more complex than the terms suggest. References