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Child Abuse And The United States Department Of Health And Human Services

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What is Child Abuse There is not one specific type of child abuse in fact there are more than one form of child mistreatment such as: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. Before going into further details of the problems and treatment of child abuse; one must know what child abuse is. The United States Department of Health and Human Services provides a standard legal definition of child abuse, CAPTA (2010) states:
"Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation"; or "An act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm." (United States Depart. Health, 2010)
These definitions clearly show that child abuse can come from any one person even including unrelated individuals who do not share genetics with that victimized child.
Child Abuse Demographics and Statistics Child abuse previously categorized as a minor incident, which is currently more visible to the eyes of people as increasing and important to address in society. According to the National Child Abuse and Neglect System as of 2012, “the number of child victims was around 3.8 million children, 1/5 of the population of child victims were found to be victims of substantiated (17.7%), indicated (0.9%), and alternative response (0.5%). Which resulted in the rest 4/5 of the child victims were not actual victims of child abuse.” (Child Mal, 2012) That sums up to about

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