We Must Prevent Child Abuse

1382 Words3 Pages

With the abundance of issues that currently surround the citizens of this country, decisions must be made when it comes to prioritizing these challenges in order to most effectively solve them. Different groups of people have varying views in terms of what is most important to work on. Due to this disagreement, there is a standstill and some issues are left to grow while they are overshadowed. While the United States government focuses their attention mainly on the economy and foreign affairs, the issue of protecting children from abuse and neglect is an ongoing struggle that needs to be more acknowledged.

There are many aspects to being a parent and the parental role includes the legal authority to make choices for the child. Along with this control comes the duty to nurture and protect them. Children should have the rights to basic necessities such as a safe place to live and sustenance, as well as the opportunity to go to school. From an emotional standpoint, children should also receive care beyond these basic necessities and be shown love. This love should consist of guidance and appropriate consequences for behaviors, as well as the unconditional support and affection that a human being thrives on. (Fass, 2004).

In the mid-1800s, a man named Charles Brace noticed the damage that was done to abused children and decided to found an organization called the New York Children’s Aid Society that sought to relocate abandoned or maltreated children from the city to farms in rural areas. This was the start of children’s rights advocacy, and by the 1880s, the pattern of abuse was noticed. Another organization formed, called the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. This was put into place after a you...

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...ill benefit from a new system that focuses on prevention as opposed to punishing wrongdoers. This will be an economically efficient change for society and children will get the protection and care they deserve.

Works Cited

Batten, D. (2011). Children's rights. In Gale encyclopedia of American law (3 ed., Vol. 2, pp. 382-385). Detroit, MI: Gale, Cengage Learning.

Fass, P. S. (2004). Children's rights. In Encyclopedia of children and childhood: In history and society (Vol. 1, pp. 186-187). New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA.

Fisher, B. S., & Lab, S. P. (2010). Family violence. In Encyclopedia of victimology and crime

prevention(Vol. 1, pp. 382-391). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Inc.

Post, S. G. (2004). Children: II rights of children. In Encyclopedia of bioethics (3 ed., Vol. 1, pp. 385-387). New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA.

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