ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to highlight the nature of interagency and interdisciplinary work to protect children in an historical perspective. The abuse of children by adults is generally considered by any standards to be a very long-standing phenomenon. Sexual abuse of children has many facets and issues: Intrafamilial sexual abuse of children, child pornography, child prostitution, less common forms of abuse, organised and ritualistic forms of sexual abuse and distinctions between incest and child sexual abuse. The philanthropic campaign to eliminate child labour is one point of similarity amongst many in the development of child welfare social policy between Britain and the US. A consideration of the protection of children from harm of the worst kind could begin with looking at the practice of baby-farming which resulted in the deaths of so many children. Child prostitution was a concern in nineteenth-century England.
