Five children a day are dying because of abuse. Whether it is sexual abuse, physical abuse, or neglect one is occurring and causing children to suffer in pain or even suffer until death. Children should not have to worry about dying or what kind of excuse they need to make up for the next injury they get. Children are one hundred percent vulnerable towards adults because they think that adults are always kind to kids. There are challenged parents and adults who do things to children that no one should ever have to suffer through. Help save a child from child abuse.

In Illinois alone, 28,530 were victims of abuse. That’s only what occurs in one state alone. Out of those children 74.4% were neglected. Examples of what neglect can be is malnutrition, systematically starved (is when the abuser or caretaker purposely starves the child for a number of days continuously), untreated medical problems, no dental or personal hygiene, and a filthy home environment. Neglect is a huge part of child abuse. More children are neglected than they are beaten, which occurs a lot. Of the number of victims 21.4% were physically abused. Everyone is most familiar with this topic because abuse is stereotyped typically as beating, hitting, or kicking children. Being physically abused is what child abuse is advertised as but it is not the only type of child abuse. And lastly, 16.5% of those children were sexually abused. Sexually abuse can be rape, molest, inappropriate touching, and talking sexually toward children. Continuing with children in Illinois, 73 of those children suffered so much that it resulted in death.

Most people want to be able to help support child abuse prevention but don’t know how. Signs of child abuse can be noticeable but hard to identify as child abuse or an everyday small injuries. Most children that are victims of child abuse will forget most of their home events, make excuses for injuries constantly (sometimes repeating the same excuse), and have severe flinching problems to sudden movement. For example, a victim of child abuse might be scared or very worrisome when talking to other adults. Some could be afraid of talking or making contact with other children, but it is most likely being afraid of adults. Victims or children affected by child abuse might relieve their stress with anger issues, alcohol, drugs, or in severe cases might fall into a depression state. No one usually suspects child abuse; they usually rule it over to mental instability or other personal problems. Almost every victim will never tell another adult or child because of the threat that is placed upon them by the abuser. For example, the abuse might threaten to kill, continue to abuse, or starve the child if they tell anyone about what is happening. Children are vulnerable humans who have not been introduced to what problems are definitely right and wrong, children need others help to explain the abuse that is occurring.

There is not one specific reason to why child abuse occurs. The topic questioning why is a very diverse topic. Common abusers might have been abused, are constantly depending or drugs, alcohol, etc., or have mental problems which cause them to think abusing is right. Other problems that have been known to cause child abuse are abandonment in the abusers past, early parenthood, no marriage, divorce or possible divorce, tragic incidents that occurred, or some might have been physically or emotionally mistreated in their childhood. Abusers typically do not wake up on a random day of the week saying “I want to become a child abuser because I think it will be fun”. They usually were abused or mistreated in their past. For example, in a story I read from an abusers point of view said that her parents did not allow the children in the family to enjoy time with each other, rest, or have happiness in their life. Seeing her own children enjoy their time in life made her furious and jealous that she didn’t have the same childhood, so she felt as though she needed to put her family through the same pain that she had to live with. And once she started treating her children very badly she never saw them in the same loving and adoring way. She ended up seeing them as people who took up space and were not supposed to necessarily be considered normal and equal human beings, but children who needed to be disciplined constantly. It only takes someone to abuse a child once and they are almost certainly going to form it into a habit. This means that another child or the same child will be abused. One moment that it takes to beat, hit, or sexually assault a child is another moment that it will occur again. Abusers do not only affect children’s life style but also affect their own because it makes them mentally unstable about their life unless they abuse or blame the situation on someone else. Blaming a child might seem like it is the quick and easy solution, but in the end continuously blaming a child can cause a lot of problems.

Child abuse is not something that can easily be overcome. The effects long term can differ, but will never disappear from the victim’s life. Most will have very active memories that never go away. Out of all the people that were abused in the world as a child, 22% gain disorders need special help or assistance. These problems are rarely short term, but are usually long term. Which means the victim with need help throughout the rest of their life. 27% of the victims with become a delinquents. Delinquents are people who are juveniles or troubled people that either like to break the law or cause mischief. Most likely people will have issues that occur in their sleep like night terrors. Night terrors are very vivid dreams that you don’t wake up as easy as nightmares and they are constantly occurring every night. The most common impact that abuse can have on a victim is some becoming suicidal, smoking, obesity, alcoholics, drug abusers, or addictions. Every victim’s case is different though because abuse affects a lot of people differently.


Treatment or recovery from child abuse is very hard to be certain that a victim should do this to recover. Recovery is a long term option that may or may not help the victims case. Most recovery or treatment is taken care of by therapists or psychotherapists. These therapists can talk the problems out of the patient and cause relief of the issue that they are facing. The main steps to recovery are first stabilizing symptoms ( confidence in therapy, rest, sometimes prescribed medication), remembering and mourning (trauma discussed, therapist listens and confront the problem with patient), and interrogation (daily life restored, sexuality discussed). Overall, therapy can reduce anxiety, depression, the occurring of flashbacks, or attention disorders. These problems are the most common effects that occur form the child abuse that happened in the victims past. If the patient/ victims problems are severe enough the therapist that is talking and confronting the problem with the victim can prescribe medication. The medication will not cure the problem but it will help the patient sleep and relax throughout the day. The victim might still feel worried or concerned but not to the extent that they were before the medication was prescribed or taken. Therapy benefits not only the reoccurring images of the past but it can also reduce the patient’s ability or desire to injury themselves throughout their everyday life. Some victims take longer for them to heal from the problem, some can work through their problem quickly. No is the same when recovering from a trauma. The most important part is that they heal and take it to the extent needed.

If we can prevent child abuse or stop it even , children all over the world will be saved from a lifelong problem of misery. Child abuse definitely affects the child when it is occurring, but always the life long period of time after their child hood. Help save a child from child abuse. You could save them from dying or coming close to dying. There is absolutely no excuse for child abuse! Save a child’s life!