Abused and neglected children

FRA, 19 September 1996

The French newspaper Le Monde published on Wendesday the results of a study of the National Observatory of Decentralized Social Intervention (Observatoire National de l'Action Sociale Décentralisée—ODAS) on maltreated children in France.

This report shows that 65 000 children are in danger in France (12% more than in 1994) Children in danger means, according to this study: abused and neglected children and children whose living conditions can jeopardize their health, security, morality, education or maintenance. This increase is partly due to the fact that more children have the possibility to denounce abuses they have to face to. But the deterioration of the social conditions can also explain this result.

25% of abused and neglected children are between 0 and 6 and and almost 60% are between 7 and 15 years old. Among abuses, physical violence and sexual abuses respectively increase of 8 and 22%. These maltreatements can occur in poor and rich families but social services are more aware of what happen in poor families because they mainly work with them.

After the pedophile' case in Belgium, social workers remarked that more children want to know what pedophile means. In the last weeks, a director of public prosecutions and two priests were charged with sexual abuses on children. Today an episcopal vicar was in turn.

Another study, carried out by a former physician leads to a very strange result. Indeed, the more a child is abused, the more he/she is victim of accidents.

This month the French periodical Panoramiques is dedicated to youth in France. Several articles are related to youth living in poor conditions and an article deals with the problem of young people living mostly on the streets in the suburb of great cities.