Archive Report
Archive Report
Concern Over Violence in the Family
Severity of the Child Abuse and Neglect Problem
Child abuse is so appalling that some people refuse to believe it exists at all. Unfortunately, however, it is very real. According to recent estimates supplied to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) by the American Humane Association, one million children are the object of neglect or abuse each year, and 2,000 to 4,000 die from circumstances involving abuse or neglect (see box, p. 70). Wayne Sage, a contributing editor to Human Beharior magazine, has written that “more children under the age of five die at the hands of their own parents than are killed by tuberculosis, whooping cough, polio, measles, diabetes, rheumatic fever and hepatitis combined.”1
It is difficult to ...