Data on Child Abuse

Child Abuse: The Cold, Hard Facts

The United States has the highest recorded number of cases of child abuse of any industrialized nation

million reports of child abuse occur annually, involving 6 million children

children die every day due to abuse-related causes (National child abuse statistics, 2013, Child Help).

Abuse can take many forms: of all recorded cases of child abuse, 78% contained instances of neglect; more than 17% contained reports of physical abuse; 10% contained instances of sexual abuse; 8% reflected psychological abuse; 2% contained instances of medical neglect; and 10% contained other types of abuse (National statistics on child abuse, 2013, National Children's Alliance).

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Most forms of child abuse are not stranger-related. "80% of reported child fatalities as a result of abuse and neglect were caused by one or more of the child victim's parents" (National statistics on child abuse, 2013, National Children's Alliance).

As brought to light in the recent scandals involving trusted religious and athletic figures: "90% of juvenile sexual abuse victims know their perpetrator" (National child abuse statistics, 2013, Child Help).

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These statistics most likely do not reflect the full extent to which abuse occurs: "it is estimated that between 50-60% of child fatalities due to maltreatment are not recorded as such on death certificates" (National child abuse statistics,2013, Child Help).

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Abuse is often cyclical. It has been estimated that 30% of abuse victims abuse their own children (National child abuse statistics, 2013, Child Help).

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Girls are more likely to be victimized than boys: 10.8 girls per 1,000 children versus 9.7 boys per 1,000 children were abused, according to the most recent available figures (Child abuse and maltreatment: Fact sheet, 2013, CDC).

No race, socio-economic group, religion, or ethnicity is immune from abuse. However, statistically, the rates of recorded instances of abuse of African-Americans, Native Americans and multiracial children are higher than those of children of other groups (Child abuse and maltreatment: Fact sheet, 2013, CDC). It is uncertain if this is due to higher rates of reporting of abuse for these groups vs. higher rates of actual manifestations of abuse (Child abuse and maltreatment: Fact sheet, 2013, CDC).

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