Report from UK shows abuse of bereaved children
Study says small number of children are at risk
Some children who suffer the loss of a mother or father are being abused or neglected by the remaining parent, according to a study by children’s charity ChildLine in London. The organization has called for urgent research into the subject after an investigation of existing studies on bereavement found virtually no mention of any association with abuse.
Esther Rantzen, ChildLine’s chairman, says the report showed for perhaps the first time that there is a small number of children for whom the death of a parent or guardian means the child is deprived of their "protector" within the family. "The sexual abuse that follows causes these already vulnerable children additional pain and betrayal, on a scale too profound for most of us to imagine," she says.
The report, by ChildLine counselor and retired pediatrician Sheila Cross, MD, was based on a 10% sample of 2,619 calls made to the charity during a two-year period ending in March 2000. The subjects were young people, the majority aged 11 to 16, who had been bereaved.
The study found that 5% of callers mentioned abuse or neglect as another problem in their lives. The report said many young people of all ages believed that their ill treatment was related to the surviving parent’s inability to cope with their own distress and frequently said that their father or mother had been drinking heavily since their partner died.
Where a bereaved child spoke about sexual abuse taking place for the first time following a bereavement, children were sometimes told that they must take a mother’s place or that the abuse was intended to comfort them.
In some instances, the death of a caregiver had removed the child’s protector (usually the mother) and the abuser had seized an opportunity that had not previously existed.
The report found that 43% of children in the study called ChildLine because a parent had died. These children described the pain of loss and their difficulty in coming to terms with a new pattern of life.
More than 21% of children in the study called because of the death of a grandparent, and 15% called after their pet had died.
Nearly a third (31%) of callers in the sample spoke of a violent death, and a small number had witnessed it — most of them in road accidents. One had watched helplessly as someone took their own life, and two had witnessed a murder.
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