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In this chapter, the authors focus on a range of Australian news articles selected for their relevance to key themes in the area of child abuse and examine two high profile cases of child abuse deaths that were extensively reported on by the media and led to system reform. Challenges for media reporting on child abuse in Australia including a changing media landscape, lack of available child abuse data and lack of publicly available serious case reviews are discussed. The authors argue that there is a need for attention to be paid to children's resistance and agency in the context of violence and abuse to counter the objectification of children and uphold their rights. Following Finkelhor (2008), the authors argue that media reporting on child abuse in Australia reflects a general approach to child abuse that is fragmented, with different types of abuse viewed as separate from one another, and call for a more integrated understanding of child abuse. The authors highlight the complexity of media responses to child abuse in Australia, noting that while the social problem of child abuse can be misrepresented by the media, media reporting has also triggered significant systemic reform and advocated for children in cases where other systems failed them.

This chapter explores what it means for adults to claim child rights. Focussing on activism against institutional child abuse, it considers the question of what happens to the mobilisation of child rights discourse when the person claiming those rights is no longer a child. In other words, how is the concept of child rights used retrospectively and what does this reveal, both about childhood and about child rights? The chapter begins with the contention that childhood needs to be understood as not only a concept that speaks to the lives of children, their experiences, and their place within the social structure. Rather, we suggest that a more expansive view enables recognition of the enduring significance of childhood in adults’ lives. We illustrate this argument with examples of the formation of collective identities based on childhood experiences, before turning to the ways that child rights are marshalled by adults in activism, in commissions of inquiry, and in the legal sphere. Throughout the chapter, we consider issues of temporality. We explore the ways in which adult survivors of childhood abuse retrospectively claim rights denied to them in the past and we examine how activism, official inquiries, and legal mechanisms position adults in relation to their childhood selves. We then consider some of the dilemmas that arise with retrospective rights claims; particularly questions of retroactivity in relation to responsibility and redress for past abuse. Finally, we explore the temporal repositioning of childhood and how past and present is bridged. This occurs through survivor activism and, in more formal mechanisms such as inquiries, by focussing on how people are represented as child victims in the past and survivors in the present.

Is more child participation always better for child rights advocacy? That is the question I examine, in this chapter, as I analyse advocacy for child rights in India that led to the adoption of the landmark Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (the ‘POCSO Act’). Through ethnographic fieldwork with non-government organisations (NGOs) and a narrative analysis of interviews and awareness material, I tell the story of how a combination of adult-led but child-participatory advocacy brought about a new, de-tabooised way of talking about child sexual abuse. By applying the theoretical lens of ‘critical child rights studies’, I suggest how we can conceptualise a critical perspective on child participation in child rights advocacy. First, adults’ multiple and, at times, conflicting roles in children’s lives – as advocates, protectors, and abusers – needs to be recognised. Second, children should participate in advocacy activities where they can have meaningful influence and be part of the conversation. This may not necessarily occur in adult spaces, where their participation remains token. Finally, I argue that child participation should never turn into a responsibilisation of children.

Purpose – Child abuse is widely accepted as having a negative effect on children's academic achievement. It is less clear why this relationship exists. Current explanations of the abuse-academic achievement connection rely on psychological theories that overlook the impact the abuse has on children's developmentally relevant social circumstances.

Methodology/approach – Using data from the National Survey of Adolescents (NSA), a nationally representative sample of youth between the ages of 12 and 17 years old, a social capital perspective is implemented to show how abuse impacts academic achievement.

Findings – Children victimized by physical or sexual abuse are more likely to join deviant peer groups, which in turn leads to increased levels of delinquent behavior by the individual. Both the “negative” social capital of the peer group and the deviant individual behaviors explain away much of the disparity in performance between abused and non-abused children and contribute to the overall understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the effects of abuse.

Originality/value of chapter – These findings provide evidence of the impact abuse can have on children's well-being and outlines social mechanisms that connect abuse victimization to children's outcomes.

This is a study on perceptions of child abuse and interventions in cases of abuse in the Family and Childhood Support Centres in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It raises the following questions: what is the divergence between the level of abuse experienced by a child and that recognized by adults? What are the conditions for recognition of the child as a victim of abuse by social workers? What interventions will the family and the child receive when the child recognized as a victim? To answer these questions, we conducted qualitative interviews with children and parents along with the social workers supporting them. The study confirms that children face abuse much more often than is recognized by adults. The child is more likely to be recognized as a victim if the parent reported the abuse, the abuse led to physical injury, or if it happened in the family. The child may be recognized as a victim if the child’s entry point into the system is through runaway or delinquent behaviour. However, in these cases, the child would more likely be treated as deviant than victimized. The child is less likely to be recognized as a victim in cases of corporal punishment within the family or abuse outside of the family (i.e., school bullying). Intervention into a case of abuse is usually focused on the mother of the child and involves enhanced supervision and social control of both the mother and the child.

This chapter focuses on ways of giving voice to the survivors of institutional abuse and how their contribution can be capitalised in raising community awareness of this phenomenon. The collection of testimonies demonstrates that institutional abuse is a common and widespread phenomenon that in most cases remains unrevealed throughout the life course. The participatory research process we describe is part of an important social and clinical intervention developed in the framework of two projects. The chapter illustrates outputs and outcomes related to disclosure of institutional abuse and its long-term consequences, as well as the meaning and implications of collective trauma. Results confirm the need to promote the voice of survivors to build a new professional and community culture and sensitisation towards children's right to be heard as an essential instrument to prevent and detect institutional ill treatment. Participatory processes can overcome the resistance of individuals, professional communities and politicians to recognising the phenomenon, emphasising institutional responsibilities and the specific effects of a serious form of maltreatment that requires extraordinary and specific interventions in terms of intensity and flexibility. This chapter describes a fieldwork and research experience made possible thanks to a strong alliance with survivors who engaged in a process of reflection and theoretical elaboration that generated both social and clinical impacts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ethical and leadership challenges arising from revelations of child sexual abuse in the 1970s and 1980s at an Australian Satyananda Yoga ashram. This paper responds to the Royal Commission’s exposition of child abuse at an Australian yoga ashram and was the first such investigation involving a faith-based organisation outside the churches.

This paper provides a critical cultural analysis of the findings of the Australian Government Royal Commission into child abuse in relation to Satyananda Yoga. Particular practices and values associated with Satyananda Yoga may have served to foster and mask widespread abuse.

This paper should generate discourse within the yoga community at both the grassroots level and within the upper hierarchy. It outlines the importance of critical awareness among teachers and students. It is hoped that the paper will help to catalyse a reparation process for survivors of child sexual abuse. It is also suggested that yoga academies re-evaluate practices and values that have been used to justify abuse.

Satyananda Yoga’s ethical and leadership challenges warrant broader research than was undertaken for this paper. The still unresolved matter of reparations for survivors of abuse needs urgent consideration.

Since the reforms started in the Romanian child protection, and in spite of adopting children’s rights, and investing in the professionalization of the child protection staff, research has indicated that children continue to suffer violence in care settings.

This chapter contributes to the literature that documents children’s rights violations in Romanian residential care, before and after the political shift in 1989, including the period after the accession to the EU, by presenting and discussing interview data of 48 adults who spent parts of their childhoods in child protection settings.

The conceptual framework of this analysis is based on the human rights perspective and the transitional justice. The main body of the article presents the testimonials of adults who grew up in institutional care in Romania, as collected in the framework of the SASCA project, funded by the European Union. ¹

Purpose – This study examined the often minimized relationship between child sexual abuse and the body and asked: How, and by what means, is the body experienced by children after sexual abuse? The purpose of this work is to present children's interpretations of embodiment in their own words.

Methodology – Data include 10 years of semi-structured videotaped forensic interviews of children and youth seen for reported cases of sexual abuse. Utilizing an analytic-inductive method, children's verbal reports of sexual abuse were examined from a symbolic interactionist perspective in terms of re/productions of the body.

Findings – Discourse analyses revealed how children evaluated the body and negotiated related emotions. Youth ascribed meaning to the body as both materiality and social interaction. The body was experienced as object and somatic presence, as a marked or stigmatized body, and as a means of control and resistance. Through their own words, youth revealed how violence draws attention to embodiment, power, and subjectivity.

Value – Despite increased public and policy attention, limited research has explored how children describe their experiences of sexual abuse. This study addresses this serious gap in the literature by approaching the sexually abused body as a critical site of social meaning and social order. Of significant import, this work brings children's voices to the forefront; it shows how youth actively negotiate embodiment and expands work with child participants. It will be of value to practitioners working with children and to scholars in the fields of sexual victimization, sociology of the body and children/childhood.

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore perceptions of the impact of program participation on parenting styles and behavioral changes using observations and in-depth semi-structured interviews with Black and Coloured staff and mothers at a community-based organization (CBO) in the Western Cape Province (WCP) in South Africa (SA). Purposive sampling was utilized in this research via the CBO and narratives from a total of twenty-three (twelve mothers and eleven staff) interviews form the basis of this manuscript. Data was collected between January – February 2017 and was analyzed through the phenomenological and inductive thematic analysis approach. The staff interviews revealed that child abandonment and neglect and the abuse of women are the two main environmental contextual factors that impact program participation. According to staff, improved self-esteem and positive life changes were identified as successful outcomes of participant involvement. The parent interviews provided examples of emotional issues such as domestic abuse and personal issues with alcohol and drugs as individual factors that impact their program participation. Changes in parenting styles was identified as successful outcomes among parent participants. The goal of this study was to provide much-needed insight into this community by presenting a variety of voices, specifically Black and Coloured men and women, that are underreported in the literature. Findings from this research adds to the knowledge of community-based parenting programs (CBPPs) for low-income and underserved populations in SA and internationally.