Child Abuse and Neglect: An Overview

Child abuse and neglect are serious global problems and can be in the form of physical, sexual, emotional or just neglect in providing for the child's needs. These factors can leave the child with serious, long-lasting psychological damage. Child maltreatment is a complex life experience occurs when a parent or caregiver does an intentional or potential damage to a child, including acts of commission and omission. Child abuse is not an uncommon event, but it is not always recognized. Identifying the real number of maltreated children is a challenge because of the large variability in reported prevalence data across studies. It is associated with important economic and social costs (such as physical and mental health, productivity losses, child welfare, criminal justice and special education costs) due to its high prevalence and its long-term and short-term consequences.