A True Story: A Child Called It

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Child Abuse Fast-forward or rewind yourself to the day your first child is/was born. Now, picture yourself holding your newborn baby in your arms. As you look at your precious new addition to you’re newly found family, you stop and think to yourself how you will never do or let anything or one hurt them. Now, bring yourself back to reality. Although you wouldn’t do anything to purposely harm your child there are parents/guardians out there that will to there own. An example of that would be from the true story A Child Called “It”. It’s about a little boy that was raised, physically abused and neglected by his mother. For years, these antics went on unknown or unacknowledged by the school and neighborhood (DavidP). Did you know that there…show more content…
Lastly, there is neglect that is caused by depriving a child of their basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, emotional and physical protection and security, medical/dental care, cleanliness, education, and the proper supervision (yesican). With that being said, there is support to allege that there are over 3 million reports of all forms of child abuse are made every year (childhelp). While there is some merit in coming forward to report suspected child abuse, how many cases are truly acts of abuse and neglect or do the authorities make and honest assessment on cases that are valid. For instance, a young mother suffering from depression tries to make a claim that her child is being abused but the child is being harmed due to her mental instability. Child abuse has been around for ages with people choosing to ignore it but in the early 1870’s it was brought to our country’s attention by a little girl named Mary Ellen Wilson. This eight-year-old orphan was getting daily whippings from her foster home (findlaw). At the time, there was no foundation that was there to protect abused children so the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals handled the eight-year-old orphan’s case (findlaw). As a result, the foster mother was convicted with assault and was given a one-year sentence in jail (findlaw). Marry Ellen’s case caused such an outrage that our citizens formed the first Society for the Prevention to Child Cruelty (findlaw). Now,…show more content…
As a result, a law was put into affect known as the “mandatory reporting” regulations (findlaw). Theses regulations require certain professionals like doctors, teachers and administrators to report to the police any suspicions of child abuse (findlaw). You would think with the creation of these regulations that we would have so many cases of child abuse reported yet still we have five children every die at the hands of their abusers (childhelp). And what is so alarming is that eighty percent of the children that die are under the age of four (childhelp). Although statistics state that five children die everyday from child abuse, there is evidence that more child abuse cases are ruled as natural death. For example a child who was severely malnourished was reported who have died from a natural cause. Unfortunately, this death should not be considered natural. This child died as a result of child abuse. Therefore, there has to be action taken to recognize reported cases of child abuse and to reduce and prevent innocent victims from becoming statistics. If we don’t attempt to put a stop to Casillas 4 child abuse, the children of our future will be greatly affected both mentally and socially. Fighting child abuse does not begin with one person, everyone needs to stand up and raise awareness and support to help those who are victims of this terrible epidemic

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