Child abuse is the physical or psychological maltreatment of a child by an adult, often synonymous with the term
child
maltreatment or the term
child abuse and neglect.There are many forms of abuse and neglect and many governments have developed their own
legal definition of what constitutes child maltreatment for the purposes of removing a child and/or prosecuting a criminal charge.The pattern was distinctly different for child
sexual abuse. Almost-one half of
sexually abused children were sexually abused by someone other than a parent or a parent-substitute. Just over one-fourth were sexually abused by a birth parent and one-fourth were sexually abused by parent-substitute (corrected NIS-3 typo). A sexually abused child was most likely to sustain serious injury or impairment when a birth parent was the perpetrator.
Male perpetrators committed 89% of
known child sexual abuse versus only 12% by females but this statistic fails to include non-contact forms of child sexual abuse that females often prefer which causes serious psychological injury and impairment. It also fails to mention social double standards, lack of research, reporting biases and other serious obstacles that hinder the gathering of credible data on over female sexual abuse of children.Girls were sexually abused about three times more often than boys. However, this data is based on definitonal guidelines that permit
inference of injury of harm to girls that occurred in connection with more extreme forms of sexual abuse. In addition, there is evidence to suggest that women commit sexual abuse against their own children in far greater numbers than are being reported, often with covert, non-contact methods, and that they can conceal both overt and covert child sexual abuse much more easily inside their families than can men. Given that female sexual abuse of children is rarely reported it is impossible to know how many boys versus girls are sexually abused by birth mothers and other female caretakers.Boys were at significantly (24%) greater risk of serious injury than girls. In addition, the trends in
fatal injuries moved in opposite directions between NIS-2 and NIS-3 studies with the incidence of fatally injured girls declining slightly while the incidence of fatally injured boys rose. Boys are also significantly more likely to be emotionally neglected than girls (boys' risk was 18% greater than girls').Children under age 12, and especially those ages 6-11 were at highest risk for all forms of mistreatment. However, one form of abuse, the sexual abuse of children has a strikingly low age transition in the distribution of incidence rates. The rate of child sexual abuse was very low for 0-2 year olds, but then relatively constant for children ages 3 and older, indicating a very wide range of vulnerability from pre-school age on.