Child Abuse In Global South: Impacts On Child Development And Rearing Practices

Child Abuse in Global South

This essay is discussed on the issues of child abuse in global south and the difference between child rearing and child discipline in global south and global north. This essay also focuses on UNCRA and the rights of child in the global south countries like South Africa, Latin America and developing parts of Asia. Discussing on how social and cultural factors influence child rearing and child development in the global south. Also explained on child rearing practices on different countries and the effects on children’s development sue to such kind of practices.

Child abuse is a huge issue especially in the global southern countries such as South Africa, Latin America and developing parts of Asia. Child abuse means harm of a child by the caregiver or parents or through any other means. Global south emerged as developed countries like South Africa, Latin America and developing parts of Asia. The global south countries are underdeveloped countries and these countries hope that these countries will help each other in social, political, and economic development. These countries also work together and deal with the situation of environmental protection, research on diseases and the movement of capital and labour (Janet Currie 2010). Child abuse is an issue in global south countries and the child development and child rearing differ in them from the global north countries.  

According to the thesis on ‘child abuse and neglect by parents and other caregivers’, it says that child abuse is a serious harm to global health whether it is south or north of the globe. Although most studies states that child abuse is a common practice in developed countries especially. In many countries, child abuse is not recognised among the public or health professionals. Recognition and awareness is important method for effective prevention. According to UNCRC, to protect children from any forms of mental or physical violence this committee has corporal punishments. And least we can do is prevent the children from any kind of abused environment and give attention to them.      

There are four types of child abuse such as physical, sexual, psychological, and neglect. Physical abuse is where the child gets harm physically and it happens in isolation by any person intentionally. In this situation child may get harmed for child’s health, survival, development or dignity. This includes physical violence and this kind of physical abuse such as beating, killing or burning can lead a child to physical and mental difficulties in the future such as depression, aggression or dissociative disorder and physically a child may die due to too much violence or get fractured (Mary Clyde Pierce 2010).

Sexual abuse happens when an adult or an adolescent person abuses a child for sexual stimulation and this may result as self-esteem issues, sexual dysfunction, suicidal thoughts and insomnia (Margaret-Ellen Pipe 2013). Psychological abuse can be harm a child in many ways mentally such as terrorizing a child by a repeated pattern of parent or caregiver that convince a child to think that they are worthless or unwanted or flawed. This type of abuse may also take place when a person yells loudly, have a rude attitude towards a child, does not give attention, and give harsh criticism (Castillo 2009). By this kind of behaviour victims face low self-esteem or blame themselves for every negative situation in life or may face disrupted attachment development or sometimes can have overly passive behaviour towards other people around them.

Theoretical Background

Neglect is another kind of abuse, in this there are types of neglectful factors such as parent or guardian neglecting their child who may be physical harmed or sexual abused by any other person or medical negligence may occur when parents fail to provide medical needs or emotional negligence happens due to lack of nurture, encouragement, support and care (Monica L. McCoy 2013). Abandonment is one of the factors of abuse as parent or guardian abandoning a child for a very long time can result to emotionally unattached towards the parent or guardian and also can cause difficulty in forming relationships or bonds towards anyone.

Child rearing is essential as due to this as child develops its emotional intelligence, self-esteem, self-control and education. Child rearing in the global south countries takes place in a different way as compared to global north countries  (Tudge 2008). And in every country child rearing and development differs such as from global south to global north due to social and cultural differences. The main cause of differentiation is the aim of parents according to society or culture such as happiness of a child or financial stability or family connections or faith or just success (Kleinman 2009). Such as in Africa, people of Kenya give eye contact a great priority as they believe it causes the babies to grow up thinking they are in control of other caregivers or guardian. Whereas, the countries like America, they believe in personal space, absence of attaining or developing a child which also sense the lack of cultural and moral values of the parent and raise their children significantly so that they achieve more than themselves (Kluckhohn 2017).

Child discipline is another factor of child rearing (Charlotte Faircloth 2013). If a parent neglects rearing a child properly the child may lack discipline in his/her life. Hence the children raised with Chinese values are taught to practice to live harmoniously with others and if someone shows their individual feelings then it is considered as harmful as it is threat to harmony. Whereas, in the other part of globe that is global northern countries which has entirely different cultural and social thinking such as Norway, as the Norwegian parents let their kids to freeze in cold ice as do not care much about it. Child abuse also gets varied from place to place according to the child rearing. In the United States, according to General Social Survey (GSS) has gathered a data from parents on violent discipline and it shows that two-third of American parents believes that child should be kept under control by spanking or by beating.

According to Urle Bronfenbrenner theory, explained that child and the child’s environment affects how a child develops throughout his/her life (ecological system theory). According to him he explained four different influential factors that is microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem and macrosystem. The microsystem is a child’s small environment where the child gets into interaction towards the people he/she may talk or play with in that immediate or present moment like school friends or caretakers. In this stage, if a child has an effective interaction and gets attention, encouragement and nurturing people around them they will have a safe and healthy development. The mesosystem is the second stage of a child’s development. This stage describes about the different part of child’s microsystem work together for the betterment of child’s development. Like, a parent making time for the child to go to his/her school for parent-teacher conferences or go for child’s important events he/she may be participating in. The third stage is the exosystem that includes the other people and places where a child might not interact with them often but still has an effective impact on it such as parent’s workplace or neighbours. And the last stage of children’s development is the macrosystem, which is the largest and includes a lot of set of people and things influential for a child’s life such as cultural values or relative freedoms permitted by the national government. And hence, this explains that a child having a abuse free environment helps a child grow free and develop healthy mentally as well as physically.   

Types of Child Abuse

UNCRC works for the child under 18 years of age and it gives importance to the main role of parents and family and takes care of the child. The UN convention consists of 41 articles, each of which is made with common approach with one another on the betterment of a child (Freeman 2009). The basic theme of UN convention is mainly focused on survival rights, development rights, protection rights, and participation rights.  UN convention also includes four articles that are given special importance to articles that are Article 2, Article 3, Article 6, and Article 12 and these articles says that the rights made by UNCRC must be convenient for all the children and they must not lack any kind of differentiation between them, the interests of children must be the foremost concern towards children, every child has the right to survive and bloom successfully, and a child’s view should be important and must be considered for further actions towards it in all matters affecting him/her respectively.

A child needs proper care, support, shelter, clothing, protection, food and all other basic needs. A child cannot self-develop himself/herself as a child does not have any source of self-development and hence these kinds of children become disadvantaged children. In order to develop security an emotional bond must be formed between the parent and the child but if the child does not get that amount of love, care, affection and attention he/she might lose trust and expectations from the parents (Chase?Lansdale 2010). According to early research, it is said that teenage mothers or single parent tend to have disadvantaged children as compared to the older parents. As a young teenage mother or a single parent they may lack attention towards the child and in this way a child may lose faith from the caretaker or the parent (Kleinman 2015).

Conclusion:

From this essay we conclude that child abuse in global south and global north are different due to difference in cultural and social backgrounds. This essay explains about the influential factors in global south that is causing child abuse that is child rearing and child development in the different parts of the globe. The main reason due to which child abuse happens due to different believes in upbringing and hence deals with a child in that particular manner which is prior to them. Thus, also explained about the reasons due to which children are disadvantaged and they totally depend on themselves for development. Also, child abuse is a crime and due to which UNCRC has some certain rules to help the children in need and bring joy to them. In this essay, explained about four essential articles on UNCRC.

Reference:

Castillo, MO 2009, ‘Childhood emotional maltreatment and later psychological distress among college students: The mediating role of maladaptive schemas’, Child Abuse & Neglect, vol 33, no. 1, pp. 59-68.

Charlotte Faircloth, DMHLLL 2013, Parenting in Global Perspective: Negotiating Ideologies of Kinship, Self and politics, Routledge, USA and Canada.

Chase?Lansdale, EVRLCCMCPLPL 2010, ‘Child Care and the Development of Behavior Problems Among Economically Disadvantaged Children in Middle Childhood’, Child Development, vol 81, no. 5.

Freeman, M 2009, ‘Children’s Rights as Human Rights: Reading the UNCRC’, The Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies, pp. 377-393.

Janet Currie, CSW 2010, ‘child maltreatment’, saga journals, vol 15, no. 2.

Kleinman, PK 2009, ‘The adult North and the young South: Reflections on the civilizing mission of children’s rights’, Anthropology Today, vol 25, no. 3.

Kleinman, PK 2015, Diagnostic Imaging of Child Abuse, 3rd edn, cambridge university press, united kingdom.

Kluckhohn, C 2017, Mirror for Man, Routledge, New York.

Margaret-Ellen Pipe, MELYOA-CC 2013, Child Sexual Abuse: Disclosure, Delay, and Denial, routledge, New York and London.

Mary Clyde Pierce, KKSAJODJL 2010, ‘Bruising Characteristics Discriminating Physical Child Abuse From Accidental Trauma’, AAP NEWS and journals gateway, vol 125, no. 1.

Monica L. McCoy, SMK 2013, Child Abuse and Neglect, Psychology Press, New York.

Tudge, J 2008, The Everyday Lives of Young Children: Culture, Class, and Child Rearing in diverse society, cambridge university press, USA.