Child Abuse & Neglect最新文献

Background: Balancing children's right to participate and their need for protection constitutes a core dilemma in child protection. The CRC obligates states to facilitate and ensure participation for all children, regardless of age and maturity. Still, children are repeatedly excluded from child protection proceedings on paternalistic grounds, even in the child-centric and child-rights-oriented Nordic countries.

Objective: From a policy theory perspective, this study explores the participation-protection dilemma by investigating Nordic citizens' attitudes towards children's participation and need for protection. Specifically, it examines how children's age and type of maltreatment affect these attitudes.

Participants and setting: Survey data from a representative sample of the populations in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden (N = 5073).

Methods: The study utilises an experimental survey methodology, using a between-subjects factorial vignette design. The child's age (5 or 15 years) and type of maltreatment exposure (sexual violence, physical violence, or emotional neglect) are systematically varied across the vignettes randomly assigned to the population.

Results: Nordic citizens support children's participation in child protection, but country differences exist. There is less support for participation for younger children and higher levels of protective attitudes. The type of maltreatment did not matter for citizens' assessment of participation. However, citizens are more protective towards children exposed to emotional neglect, especially younger children.

Conclusions: Children's right to participate is widely accepted in the Nordic population, yet normative barriers persist. The study sheds light on the paradox of persisting violation of children's participatory rights despite supportive national policies and legal structures that facilitate implementation.

Background: Sibling sexual abuse is a common form of intra-familial sexual abuse, yet it remains under-studied and under-recognised, leaving many children unprotected and unsupported. Practitioners need rigorously conducted evidence syntheses to inform decision making in this complex practice area.

Objective: A scoping review was conducted with the broad research question: What is known about sibling sexual abuse? in order to map the research and to establish areas of knowledge and gaps requiring attention.

Method: The review followed the guidelines of Arksey and O'Malley (2005), and through searches of 11 academic databases, 3 grey literature databases, journal handsearch and Google, identified 91 empirical papers for review.

Results: While poorly and inconsistently defined, sibling sexual abuse is a common form of child sexual abuse with significant consequences for the whole family. It may involve children of any age and sex, entail the full range of sexual behaviours, and can take place in families from across the socioeconomic spectrum. Disclosure is uncommon during childhood, with multiple barriers including the nature of the caregiving environment in which sibling sexual abuse often takes place. Official records are likely to under-report the frequency and duration of the abuse.

Conclusions: There is considerable scope for further research across all aspects of sibling sexual abuse. This paper represents the most comprehensive (albeit not complete) overview of the current body of knowledge in this field to date, and presents key findings as well as a summary of practice and research recommendations.

Background: Sibling sexual abuse, believed to be the most common form of sexual abuse, is a marginalized area of study. Even so, available literature largely focuses on the survivors and a gap remains in understanding the experience of the parents in these circumstances.

Objective: The study aims to examine the experience of parents who learn that sexual abuse has been perpetrated on their child(ren) by a sibling(s).

Participants and setting: The sample includes 58 participants who identify as a parent of a child who was sexually abused by a sibling, a child who sexually harmed a sibling, or both. The sample was recruited by 5WAVES, a grassroots charity that supports families experiencing sibling sexual trauma.

Methods: Participants completed a voluntary and anonymous online questionnaire which inquired on how they learned of the abuse in their family as well as how they reacted and continue to cope. The current qualitative analysis follows a reflexive thematic method and is a portion of a larger mixed-methods study.

Results: Four overarching themes were identified: (1) Parental trauma experience upon learning of sibling sexual trauma, (2) Initial and continual parental emotional responses to the trauma, (3) Breakdown of the ideal family and (4) Parental attempts at coping.

Conclusions: These results recognize the unique trauma experienced by parents where sibling sexual abuse occurred in their family. It acknowledges the crucial need for clinicians, professionals, family and friends to support parents during this time in order that they can best support their children and family.