Today’s victims are tomorrow’s perpetrators; but this state of affairs is not inevitable. That is the burden of the 2014 UNICEF report, titled “Hidden in Plain Sight”. It says the physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children is so pervasive because there is a high level of acceptance around these habitual behaviours. Also, there is that level of acceptance only because such violence in fact takes place in settings where boys and girls should normally feel safe. This scenario is evidently most unfortunate, but perhaps not quite surprising. A 2013 report by the World Health Organization, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the South African Medical Research Council estimated that globally, intimate partners were behind 38 per cent of incidents of murder of women. Data from 190 countries sourced by the UNICEF study shows that violent discipline is the most common practice. Six out of ten children in the 2-14 age group are subjected to physical punishment by caregivers. Nearly one out of three adolescents has either bullied their peers or have themselves experienced the humiliation. Nearly a quarter of all girls in the 15-19 age group report physical violence and one in ten girls under 20 years are subjected to forced sexual acts. As it is often the case, the report cautions that victims of extreme violence in their early years, end up as perpetrators themselves.
Yet, there is growing evidence that this cycle of violence can be broken, the report argues, provided the lid of silence and denial is lifted. In particular, it points to the success of several interventions aimed at strengthening the child-rearing skills of parents and caregivers. Techniques of non-violent discipline to promote positive interaction between parents and children and sharing knowledge about early child development are some of the other proven strategies. Openness to imbibe novel approaches that are more in tune with modern-day life would enable communities to find parenting a joyful experience. To be sure, time-tested and humane practices have an important role in child development and are critical to the transmission of cultural values down generations. The emotional scars are the most damaging, but not to be wished away are the astronomical economic burdens, as well as irreversible health effects, of violence against children. UNICEF refers to a study in East Asia and the Pacific, which estimated the cost of maltreatment in a single year at $150-160 billion, or 2 per cent of that region’s Gross Domestic Product. Another study, in the United States, found the cost over a life-time of confirmed maltreatment in just a single year to be about $124 billion. Children deserve a better deal; and it is the adults who can make the difference.