In what senses can child abuse be said to be ‘socially constructed’? Discuss with reference to the changing social definitions of child abuse.

Child abuse and Society

Any exploitation of children , whether physical , psychological , sexual emotional maltreatment or neglect of children constitute what is known as Child abuse . According to UNICEF report , United States of America and United Kingdoms rank lowest when it comes to the care of children . Child abuse is not a new phenomenon but is well very prevalent among families in many civilizations since centuries . There had always been a tendency to tame the children according to their familial and societal practices and till now children are decreed upon to follow certain

practices that are the part of the family . Its through the family that children see themselves , and if energy and dynamism that children show is suppressed then children will learn to suppress their vitality in themselves and loose that childlike behavior and mannerism , which spread an essence of serenity , love and happiness around . Children may feel unwanted undesired and depressed (Karson 2001 :17 ) This implies that child abuse is a reality and is conferred in the realm of socially contrive environment

Child abuse has many faces in the socially contracted patterns and parameters . Although the rules , policies and actions currently undergoing to over come child abuse had been present in one form or the other yet this matter never had been undertaken on a massive scale within the media and society until 1870 's when it became an institution in itself to chalk out the causes and reasons and formed the policies to reach at the grass root level to curb child abuse (Norman 1994 : Online The child abuse has become so common pattern that we often ignore it as a mad act but it cannot be ignored , as its consequences are devastating C . Henry Kempe , the noted physician made a dramatic increase in creating public awareness on the abuse and how the children are neglected , in his lectures on the battered-child syndrome (Kenney , McCauley : Online

The mass media has a very crucial role to play in raising the consciousness of the people on the several abuses that child endorses and also showed that it becomes a source of disillusionment and frustration not only for the child who is abused but also for the abuser himself . It 's the media with its heart rendering stories on the child abuses brought this sleepy problem since centuries to the consciousness of the society as a whole . These horror stories were successful in bringing to the light the maltreatment of the children and made the child maltreatment movement in United States of America a great success and a great successful venture to endure , socially and politically (Johnson 1995 : 267 ) The human- interests ' story has always predominated the pages of Media . It all took shape due to the intense moment of the Anthony Dawns who presented the of the issue attention cycle . From the formulation of the Dawn 's theory , the cases of the child abuse began to get good coverage in the media . Dawns found that Americans have a touching...