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c h a p t e r n i n e Continuing Concerns Childhood Abuse and Neglect: A Contested World Problem The terrible abuse and neglect suffered by millions of children throughout the world are seemingly endless. In war zones, children are witnesses to and often the victims of horrible atrocities. With the threat of execution if they refuse, they are recruited to fight in armies and forced to kill adults and one another. In cities throughout the world, violence on the streets claims the lives of some children and brutalizes countless others. Among those who flee as refugees from the terrors of war and persecution, half are children. Adding to the list worldwide are the victims of economic and sexual exploitation, those who go to bed hungry at night, whose diseases go untreated. The abused are not only the poor. Abuse and neglect occur in families from all economic levels , as well as in schools and other institutions, including some in the United States.1 Despite their differences, each of these instances of abuse deeply traumatizes children. They are harmed physically, psychologically, and in the disruption of their social worlds. In No Place to Be a Child: Growing Up in a War Zone, which deals with the most extreme cases of the abuse of children, Garbarino, Kostelny, and Dubrow discuss these three forms of harm to children: physical, psychological, and social. In respect of the last, they observe that “some of the worst consequences of today’s wars are not physical and psychological, but social. Wars produce social dislocation , of which one consequence is a breakdown in the basic ‘infrastructure of life.’ All too often this includes food, health care, and education.”2 They discuss Palestinian and Cambodian refugees, children from Mozambique and Nicaragua , and inner-city children of the south side of Chicago. Regarding refugees, • 178 • these authors write that “the problems of refugees are intrinsically political,” that “governments and other political actors use refugees as pawns in their power struggles.” Because of insu‹cient resources, “many young refugee children are suffering from malnutrition even though they are o‹cially in the ‘care’ of the international community. The international refugee problem parallels the situation of the homeless in America, who often find the public resources available to them meager at best.” Their general recommendations are to “increase the resources available for aiding refugee children, whatever their politics.” Children with parents or supporting families should be relocated or repatriated to safety. Those without parents require “new homes and families for them as soon as possible.” If deeply traumatized, they need long-term “emotional and behavioral rehabilitation,” and, in some cases, psychiatric intervention.3 The authors advocate following the letter and the spirit of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and they have specific recommendations particular to each of the regions they discuss. While the treatment of most Vietnamese unaccompanied minors in detention and refugee camps does not compare with the horrors recounted by Garbarino , Kostelny, and Dubrow, many Vietnamese children were deeply harmed nonetheless. The most damaging environments were Site 2, Thailand, and Whitehead and Shek Kong, Hong Kong, during their times of greatest turmoil and violence. In these camps, children rightly feared for their lives. But other camps also disrupted the fabric of social life. Most children said they were hungry all of the time, though o‹cials claimed they got enough food. Most complained of suffering from untreated minor ailments. Most described the psychological torture of the best-interests status interviews. Many described their fears not only of being physically assaulted in the camps but of the unknown. Many cried when they recalled the loss of family and relatives. Some children were illiterate , and almost all others were several years behind in school, even if schooling existed in the camps. Because of the disruption of their lives, they could not concentrate on their studies or attend school. Taken together, these conditions show the true character of the camps: deeply abusive environments. Not all abuse is the same; the cultural context of abuse is quite different in traditional and in industrial societies. Nancy Scheper-Hughes observes that “the emerging new threat to child survival and well-being in industrialized societies is posed by intentional child abuse.” She contrasts situations of selective neglect and infanticide, characteristic of some traditional societies, and often caused by economic and environmental threats, with the contemporary deliberate mistreatment of children, including psychological abuse. “In terms of C O N...

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