ABSTRACT
Child abuse is endemic. It comes in many forms and its categories are not closed. There is physical abuse, the first to be 'discovered'; emotional abuse, underestimated; and sexual abuse, the 'new' cancer eating into the family. Neglect too may be considered a form of abuse, though it is curiously neglected in the literature. Child abuse is found within the family and within institutions, often in those established to protect and nurture children at risk. Parents commit it: it is perpetrated also by step-parents, live-in boyfriends, older siblings, relatives, care workers and teachers. Child abuse is rarely out of the news, and when a particularly gross scandal occurs, a Maria Colwell, a Cleveland, the Dutroux affair in Belgium, it dominates headlines across the globe. Breasts are beaten and souls are searched. In the 1960 interest in the problem of child abuse spread also to the social work profession.
