Top Down Policies to Prevent Child Abuse
Child abuse and neglect is a very serious societal and public health concern since it has far-reaching consequences for the youngest and most vulnerable members of society. Every child is considered to be better off when they and their peers have access to a safe, stable, nurturing environment and healthy relationships with people who have power over them to ensure holistic development. Thus, we all have a vested interest in ensuring that other children, not just our own, have a safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments. While child abuse and neglect is a significant public health problem, it is also a preventable one. The policy, norm, and programmatic strategies and approaches identified herein are intended to help guide the creation of neighborhoods and communities where every child has a safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments and a world where every child can thrive.
A combination of both top-down and bottom-up policies is required to prevent child abuse. Central and federal policies, combined with grassroot awareness campaigns is perhaps an adequate mix to reduce the propensity of child abuse and increase the reporting of such crimes by children or other stakeholder/bystanders. Inclusion of preventing child abuse in the Public Health Policy can play an important and unique role in addressing child abuse and neglect. Public health agencies, which typically place prevention at the forefront of efforts and work to create broad population-level impact, can bring critical leadership and resources to bear on this problem. The efficacy of public health programmes can be evaluated by analyzing successful population control initiatives which have lead to an increase in sales of birth control pills and other contraceptive methods in India.
The smooth functioning of other parts and departments of the state machinery is also vital to implement a comprehensive top-down solution targeted to improve the current statistics on child abuse. This must include policy and operational changes in sectors including but not limited to education, social services, health services, labor, justice, housing, media, and organizations that comprise civil society such as faith-based organizations, youth-serving organizations, foundations and other non-governmental organizations. Collectively, these sectors can make a difference in preventing child abuse and neglect by impacting the various contexts that contribute to and support safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments for children.
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Media has played a key role in protitizing the issue of child abuse and the problems associated with child protection on public and political agendas over the last fifty years in the western world. Moreover, this discourse has trickled down to third world countries as well, which generally tend to have a more conservative society. This is in line with the general trend of global media, which has grown multifold in the past few years. Media has taken the crucial responsibility in bringing the problems that plagues society into the open. This increase in coverage is not only restricted to higher prioritization in news media but also the growth of movies and songs that seek to highlight problems related to child abuse.
Not only does the media have the power to help transform the private into the public, it also has the power to undermine trust, reputation and legitimacy of individuals who are glorified and looked up to by society. With the growth of the #metoo movement, there have been increased instances of men in positions of power being called out for instances of sexual abuse. News media and social media have been the driving forces behind the #metoo movement, and there is a general sense of solidarity for the victims of sexual assault, especially those who are below the age of 18. This has allowed the social ostracization of glorified actors including Kevin Spacey have been accused of inappropriate sexual conduct against children. Legal persecution against such crimes is impossible due to the rigidity of many legal procedures. Social Deterrence, fueled by media has acted as a suitable preventive measure and as a substitute of legal punishment.
However, there is a propensity of media misusing this power as well, be it intentionally to cause harm to certain stakeholders or even with the best of interests. Sensationalization of news and vested interest of individuals have often hampered the fair dissemination of information to the public. Moreover, coverage is often attempted to be made uniform, and there have been attempts to straightjacket different events into rigid boxes. The lack of attention paid to context of crimes has led to the promotion of narratives which have been classified as insensitive, racist or classist. In being so concerned about scandals and tragedies in a variety of institutionalized and community settings, it has portrayed the nature of child maltreatment in ways which deflect attention from many of its core characteristics and causes.
