Abuse and neglect are forms of maltreatment of a child. Somebody may abuse or neglect a child either directly by inflicting harm, or indirectly, by failing to act to prevent harm.
Child Abuse is when someone is ill-treating a child, causing damage to the child's health or personal development.
Child abuse falls into one or more of four categories:
- Physical Abuse which may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or scalding, drowning, suffocating or otherwise causing physical harm to a child.
- Emotional Abuse which is the persistent emotional ill treatment of a child such as to cause severe and persistent effects on the child’s emotional development.
- Sexual abuse which involves forcing or enticing a child to take part in sexual activities, including prostitution, whether or not s/he is aware of what is happening.
- Neglect which involves the persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health and development.
An explanation of what child abuse is, where to go for support and what steps the police and social workers can take to protect a child is available from citizensadvice and NSPCC.
Abused when you were a child
If you were abused as a child, you may be able to get financial compensation.
More information on help and support available if you were abused as a child is available from citizensadvice.
Help and advice
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC)
The NSPCC is a British child protection charity dedicated to ending cruelty to children.
Full details of the NSPCC and the services they provide are available at MAG - NSPCC.
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) are part of UK Policing and are dedicated to eradicating the sexual abuse of children.
Thinkuknow is the CEOP's website on internet safety and safe surfing for young people when using blogs, chatting, online gaming, P2P and webcams.
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