ISPCAN World Perspectives on Child Abuse 10th Edition

Since 1982, the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN) has published the World Perspectives on Child Abuse every two years, released in conjunction with our international congresses. This Tenth Edition follows this tradition, released at the time of our congress in Istanbul, Turkey. The title, World Perspectives, suggests an ambitious goal. It is naturally difficult to cover the entire world and to capture what is happening related to child abuse and neglect or child maltreatment (CM) in all countries in any depth. Nevertheless, World Perspectives offers valuable glimpses of this problem in many countries, an opportunity to track trends and progress, and it hopefully offers information that many will find useful. The Tenth Edition of World Perspectives includes three main sections. The first section covers key regional findings, based on reports from 69 countries. It also includes findings by country income level category – low, middle, and high. The World Perspectives’ 2012 Survey And Key Findings Survey Questionnaire A modified version of the 2008 World Perspectives survey was used; topics included: behaviors and conditions defined as constituting CM, the current professional response to CM such as reporting systems, case investigative systems, and the legal prosecution of cases. We also surveyed the scope and availability of services to address the needs of maltreated children and their families, the major barriers professionals face in improving the response to CM, and the strategies thought to be effective in preventing CM. Respondents were given a link to the survey website and the questionnaire was completed online by all but one. Sample We obtained completed surveys from 69 countries, representing 77% of countries where we were able to find a potential respondent. The 2012 sample represents all regions of the world, with 10 respondents from Africa, 10 from the Americas, 27 from Asia, 20 from Europe and two from Oceania. Our response rates this year exceeded 60% in all but one region (Africa). It is clear, however, that there were a good many countries where our outreach efforts failed to find respondents. Countries were also categorized by income level (high, middle or low) based upon designations by the World Bank; 28 countries were classified as high income, 36 as middle income and 4 as low income. The low number in the last category requires caution in interpreting findings pertaining to it.