Developed countries also have shameful record of child abuse

LONDON: Sexual abuse of children is not only a third world problem but also the developed countries have shameful record for child abuse. Police, clerics, celebrities and public figures have indulged in inhuman behaviour.

According to a report of charity The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), in 2010, in England and Wales, 2,172 people were found guilty or cautioned for the specific offence of “cruelty to or neglect of children”.

There are other offences against children which lead to prosecutions, for example in the same year 309 people in England and Wales were cautioned or found guilty of sexual activity with a child under 13, and 1,184 of sexual activity with a child under 16, says NSPCC.

The prime example of children’s sexual sex abuse in England was late Jimmy Savile, a celebrity English DJ and radio personality, who was well known in Britain for his charitable work. He had committed sexual abuse at a vast scale and his victims ranged from prepubescent girls and boys to adults. Police says that the total number of alleged victims was 589, of whom 450 allegedly abused by Savile and most of his victims were aged between 5 and 75.

More than 60,000 cases of children abuse have been recorded by police forces across the UK over the last four years. The overall number of recorded offences will be higher as UK police forces did not provide full figures for all four years. The statistics came from police forces in England and Wales as well as the British Transport Police and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the NSPCC said.

Sex offences committed by adults in positions of trust have increased by more than 80 percent since 2014. The number of professionals such as teachers, care staff and youth justice workers who exploited 16 and 17 year olds rose to 290 in the year up to June -- up from 159 three years ago. In total, nearly 1,000 crimes have been recorded since 2014, said the charity. The NSPCC reported the number of reported cases of child sexual abuse in the UK rose by almost a third in last 78 to 265 cases last year.

John Cameron, the head of helplines at the NSPCC, said: “It is deeply worrying that so many children are potentially being exposed to such a devastating experience,” but at the same time it also suggests that as a society we are much more alert to the risks and much more willing to come forward and share our concerns.

The NSPCC said that one in three children sexually abused by an adult did not tell anyone. One in 20 children in the UK have been sexually abused and over 2,900 children were identified as needing protection from sexual abuse in last year, the charity confirmed.

It is pertinent to mention that victim children were known by their relatives in 22.9 percent of cases where a young person of 11 to 17 years was physically hurt by a parent or guardian nobody else knew about it. The same applied in 34 percent of cases of sexual assault by an adult and 82.7 percent of cases of sexual assault by a peer. Five percent of under 11s, 13.4 percent of 11-17s and 14.5 percent of 18-24s had experienced severe maltreatment by a parent or guardian during their childhood, revealed the NSPCC report.

The research also provides new evidence on which adults living outside the immediate family home are most likely to pose a risk to the safety and wellbeing of children and young people. In reports, involving non-resident adults, males were the majority of both perpetrators and victims of physical abuse, being the perpetrators in 66.4 per cent of reports for the 11-17s and 83 percent for 18-24s. Female-perpetrated abuse was reported by 22.2 percent of the 11-17s and 13.1 per cent of the 18-24s.

Among boys aged 11 to 17, severe lifetime maltreatment by a non-resident adult was consistently associated with more delinquent behaviour than less severe levels of maltreatment. However, the same pattern was only evident among young adult women.