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Child Abuse and Neglect in Australia
Child abuse and neglect', also known as 'child maltreatment' is the broad term for the acts or behaviour of parents, caregivers and others that endanger a child or young person's physical or emotional health or development. MORE

Scale
Child abuse is Australia's most serious social problem. Every year, for the last six years, every indicator of child abuse and neglect has increased - reports, substantiated (confirmed) cases, care and protection orders, and the number of children living in out-of-home care (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [AIHW], 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006).

Today, a child protection report is made every two minutes - a rate that has more than doubled over the last four years. A child is substantiated as having, or being likely to have, suffered child abuse or neglect every 11 minutes, which was more than 34,000 individual children in 2004-05 alone (AIHW, 2006).

Given the size of the problem, and the psychological, emotional and physical damage that can result, child abuse and neglect represents one of the greatest barriers and threats to the wellbeing of Australian children, young people and the next generation of children and adults. It affects mental, emotional and physical health, levels of violence and crime, addiction, educational attainment and employment. The consequences can be lifelong and it has been found that the perpetration of violence and abuse can also be passed on to future generations (Tomison, 1996). Proven cases of abuse and neglect affecting Indigenous children average six times greater than the broader population.

Effects
Child abuse is rarely a one off incident and is always harmful. Children who are abused get the message that they are of little value. Abuse is known to increase the risks of:
  • substance addiction
  • crime
  • homelessness
  • poor physical health
  • educational failure
  • poor employability prospects
  • depression and suicide.

As a result past victims of abuse and neglect are grossly over-represented in the populations of our prisons, as perpetrators of crime and violence, and amongst the economically and socially disadvantaged members of our society.

Economic costs
The economic cost of child abuse and neglect was estimated to be $5 billion in 2003 (Keatsdale, 2003), and a further $769 million in 2004 was determined to be the cost of family violence on children (Access Economics, 2004). In total, therefore, this estimated cost of child abuse and neglect is more than Australia's annual income from meat exports (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005).

 
 

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