Question

Why do you think the study of Child maltreatment produces so many controversial issues? Why so mant contreveries in the study of child maltreatment?

Answer 1

Meaning Of Maltreatment:

Child maltreatment is the abuse and neglect that occurs to children under 18 years of age. It includes all types of physical and/or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect, negligence and commercial or other exploitation, which results in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, survival, development or dignity in the context of a relationship of responsibility, trust or power. Exposure to intimate partner violence is also sometimes included as a form of child maltreatment.

I don’t think there really are much issues anymore. But whatever debate continues to exist arises, in large part, from the demands and functions of the legal system. People accused of a crime have the right to mount an effective legal defense, including a detailed rebuttal of witness/victim/ scientific testimony. Because such testimony may involve seemingly strange notions of memories lost and found, it is predictable that lawyers would hone in on this and that researchers supportive of the defense would attempt to challenge the notion of recovered memories.

The controversy has had such an emotional pitch to it in large part because of the primary arena in which repressed memories have been at issue—namely, child sex abuse. The topic of child sex abuse gained widespread media coverage beginning in the 1980s, when news of sexual abuse of children in day care centers around the country was widely reported in the press and books and on talk shows. Media coverage of new reports of previously repressed memories of childhood abuse among adults began in the late 1980s and continued into the 1990s. It was all part of what Berkeley professor and Freud Scholar Fred Crews described as the “great sex panic that gripped this continent” in the latter part of the 20th century.

Child maltreatment is a global problem with serious life-long consequences. In spite of recent national surveys in several low- and middle-income countries, data from many countries are still lacking.

Child maltreatment is complex and difficult to study. Current estimates vary widely depending on the country and the method of research used. Estimates depend on:

• the definitions of child maltreatment used;
• the type of child maltreatment studied;
• the coverage and quality of official statistics;
• the coverage and quality of surveys that request self-reports from victims, parents or caregivers.

Due to all these reasons controversial issues do arise but they are far more better than earlier days.