Victimized children

Victimized children, focusing on how children suffer, trends in the rate of child abuse, the credibility of children as witnesses, and sibling abuse.

Victimized children

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) deems child abuse and neglect to be a high-priority health problem. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) considers violence against children to be a public health crisis. As for the changes over time, the fourth NIS study found that maltreatment declined by 26 percent since the third NIS survey in 1993.

The testimony of children has been viewed with skepticism ever since the Salem witch trials of 1962, when a number of girls made outrageous claims that they publicly recanted several years later after the “witches” were executed. Historically, when children were drawn into the adult court system as prosecution witnesses, the proceedings were inherently biased against their participation. Furious fights between siblings over possessions, demands for privacy, pecking orders, and parental attention are the subjects of Bible stories, plays, novels, movies, and family folklore. Sibling-on-sibling violence stands out because it is the most frequent yet least studied type of assault. 14 point font, in arial, single-spaced. all 10 sources have to be scholarly.