Report: one in five Danish children abused
More action to stop violence against children needed, study says A report published today by the Danish National Centre for Social Research (SFI) suggests that violence against children is significantly more widespread than doctors and teachers and other professionals believe....
A report published today by the Danish National Centre for Social Research (SFI) suggests that violence against children is significantly more widespread than doctors and teachers and other professionals believe.
The study says that 5.6 per cent of children in Denmark, approximately 3,000, are exposed to physical violence. Local councils, however, identify only one in five abused children, and hospitals just one in one thousand.
Mogens Christoffersen, a senior researcher at SFI said more needs to be done.
“The coordination between authorities is not good enough,” he said. “There are simply too many caseworkers who do not go to see whether domestic violence has stopped after a case has been discovered”.
Social Minister Benedikte Kiaer admits that more needs to be done, saying that social workers are often too hesitant to step in where they think a child might be being abused.