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Abstract
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BACKGROUND
The problem, condition or issue
Child maltreatment, that is, 'various types of violence such as sexual, emotional and physical, abuse and/or emotional and physical neglect' (Lueger-Schuster et al., 2018), is a widespread phenomenon affecting millions of children, adults and communities around the globe.
Measuring the prevalence of child maltreatment in institutional contexts is challenging, and these data are not readily available. Moreover, studies do not generally deal solely with maltreatment occurring specifically in these settings, and disentangling the effects of maltreatment occurring in institutional settings versus other maltreatment settings is not routine. That said, the overall rates of any type of child maltreatment may provide some indication, and these have recently been estimated to be between 3 per 1,000 children for physical and emotional abuse and 4 per 1,000 children for sexual abuse (Stoltenborgh, Bakermans-Kranenburg, Alink & van IJzendoorn, 2015). The World report on violence and health launched in 2002 reported a prevalence for abandonment and neglect at 21.9% in Kenya and 12-19% of physical neglect and abandonment in Canada (Krug, 2002). A series of meta-analyses estimated an overall prevalence rate of 16.3% for physical neglect and 18.4% for emotional neglect (Stoltenborgh et al., 2015). However, prevalence rates are sensitive to a number of factors. There are both geographical and gender differences. Rates also vary depending on whether incidences of maltreatment are self-reported or based on informants (Greger, Myhre, Lydersen & Jozefiak, 2015; Moody, Cannings-John, Hood, Kemp & Robling, 2018), and can vary with the identity of the perpetrator/s. How widely or narrowly different subtypes of maltreatment are defined and operationalised in studies or how many items are used to measure prevalence, can also impact on rate estimates. They should therefore be interpreted with caution.
Even less is known about the prevalence of various forms of child maltreatment taking place within institutional settings such as kindergartens and schools, religious institutions, out-of-home care and other comparable contexts in which children spend their time (Blakemore, Herbert, Arney & Parkinson, 2017; Proeve, Malvaso & DelFabbro, 2016). Maltreatment in these contexts, can encompass adults abusing children, children abusing other children, institutions enabling child maltreatment and child characteristics enhancing their vulnerability to maltreatment. The dearth of research is due to the comparably young age of institutional child maltreatment as a field of empirical research (Timmerman & Schreuder, 2014), in which the focus has been on sexual abuse within especially religious and out-of-home care institutions, whereas other types of maltreatment and settings have been less examined (Proeve et al., 2016).
Recent studies conducted in Germany (Allroggen, Ohlert, Rau & Fegert, 2018) and Norway (Greger et al., 2015) confirm that children placed in institutional care are at significantly higher risk of experiencing maltreatment but less is known about maltreatment taking place in areas such as sports and exercise (Bjørnseth & Szabo, 2018).
However, it is clear that child maltreatment taking place in these settings affects the lives of both victims, their families and their communities--at times for generations. Child maltreatment has a negative impact on the physical, mental, spiritual, educational and economic wellbeing of those experiencing and surviving it--both in the short term and in the form of long-term consequences that reduce the quality of life during adulthood (Lueger-Schuster et al., 2018).
In recent years, child maltreatment occurring in institutional settings has received substantial attention both at the policy level, amongst practitioners and service agencies working with children in different capacities and roles, and as part of the public debate...
Language: en |