ABSTRACT
The death of Maria Colwell in East Sussex in 1973 at the hands of her stepfather threw a glaring light on the physical abuse of children, which has yet to be dimmed (Department of Health and Social Security 1974). It gave renewed impetus to discussions, agitation, research, practice development, media coverage (sensationalist and otherwise), policy initiatives, and the restructuring of services which continues today. Long before some other professional groups became the subject of media and public scrutiny, social work was propelled into an arena to which it was not accustomed, a situation which still obtains all these years later. Maria Colwell’s death came three years after the creation of social services
departments, which had seemed to signal a new dawn for social work. Nearly 30 years earlier, in 1945, the death of 13-year-old Denis O’Neill, beaten and starved by his foster father, had led to the Curtis report and the decision to create children’s departments, that were later to be subsumed by those very the social services departments (Douglas and Philpot 1998). More than 50 years later the murder of Victoria Climbe by her great aunt and her aunt’s lover in 2000 provoked the inquiry by Lord Laming which, in time, led indirectly to the abolition of the social services departments and the creation of local authority children’s services departments separate from those for adults (Department of Health and the Home Office 2003). Few children suffer only one form of abuse. The deaths of Denis O’Neill
and Maria Colwell drew wide attention to physical abuse and neglect, as that of Victoria Climbe was to do. This was not wholly surprising in that the care of children had been so much shaped by those who had been determined to tackle these very social ills. The great children’s charities, like Barnardo’s (Rose 1987), NCH (Philpot 1994), the Church of England Central Home for Waifs and Strays Society (now the Children’s Society) and the NSPCC, had been founded in the latter part of the 19th century to tackle the great evils of child neglect, physical abuse and abandonment. In the last 20 years or so sexual abuse has come to the forefront in terms of
professional concern and media and public interest. Indeed, it is arguable that
this emphasis has now tended to overshadow issues of physical abuse and neglect. The definition of sexual abuse is something which changes from culture to culture, from period to period. Sanderson (2004) cites deMause (1976, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1998, 2002) as having found historical evidence of sexual abuse which has not been recognised as such because of the prevailing attitudes toward children at different times. But we do not need to look at the past to understand how cultural norms
affect how the treatment of children is viewed. In Chile and Mexico today, for example, the age of sexual consent is 12, which is two years below the age fixed by our Victorian ancestors in England. In other modern societies as diverse as Spain, North Korea and South Korea the age of consent is 13, while young people in Denmark, Sweden and France are able to consent to sexual intercourse when they become 15. In the United States the age of consent differs from state to state so that, for example, in New York it is 17 and in California it is 18. In Northern Ireland, a part of the UK, it is 17. Bolivia holds to 17, while Vietnam and Egypt have legislated for 18 and Tunisia for 20 years of age (The Guardian 2005). Some sexual practices are acceptable in some places but abominated in
others. Some African and Middle Eastern countries allow female genital circumcision, which is illegal in the USA and the UK, although there is evidence that operations still occur there. Sanderson (2004) quotes the World Health Organisation as estimating that between 130 and 140 million children in the world today have been subjected to this operation. In many countries marriage between children, and often marriage of a child to an adult, continues and in Egypt marriage between brothers and sisters is permitted. Elsewhere, temple maidens still exist: young girls provide sexual services to worshippers. The masturbation of boys to make them “manly” is accepted in some parts of India, while it is done to girls to make them “sleep well” (deMause 1976, 1991, 1993, 1998, 2002 quoted by Sanderson 2004). In some African countries, sex with a female child or young girl who is a virgin is believed to cure sexually transmitted diseases, an idea reaching back to ancient notions of the purity of children. In the age of AIDS/HIV this supposed antidote or preventative has taken on what is, literally, a deadly topicality. Again, older ideas of child sacrifice can be seen revived in the idea of ritual abuse, which has gained some attention in the UK, although there must remain some doubt as to how “genuine” such rituals are as opposed to being used to frighten children into submission. Increasing attention, in Europe at least, is now being given to child prosti-
tution with its often attendant evil of child trafficking. However, children do not have to be taken across borders or “trafficked” for them to be ensnared in the trade: it is believed that there are 300,000 child prostitutes in the United States and 200,000 in Thailand, the country with which it is most commonly associated. Sanderson (2004) claims that 14 per cent of Asian countries’ GNP can be attributed to child prostitution through the sex tourism trade. In Britain there are thought to be 5,000 children in the sex trade and in France 8,000 (Sanderson 2004).
