One in five students is victim of sexual and other forms of abuse, study

One in five school students is a victim of sexual abuse, physical punishment, slapping or negligence, says the study “Chisinau Teachers’ Attitude to Child Abuse” carried out by the National Center for Child Abuse Prevention as part of the program “Childhood without Abuse – Towards a Better Child Protection System in Eastern Europe”, Info-Prim Neo reports. The teachers confessed they witnessed cases of negligence and emotional abuse, but very few cases of sexual abuse. This can be explained by the lower number of cases of sexual abuse and by the fact that such cases are not easily identified as the children-victims are afraid to reveal them. Each third teacher said they always get involved in cases of child abuse and discuss with the parents. Each tenth teacher informs the superiors about such cases. The teachers seldom contact the tutelage authorities that deal with such cases. Nine in ten teachers said a parent suspected of sexual abuse must be isolated from the family. Most of them said many children are subject to violence due to the people’s indifference and the non-cooperativeness of the child rights protection institutions.