When was child abuse first recognized

Whenever mamma goes out she locks me in the bedroom. According to the Army Community Service Family Advocacy Group, five children die every day as a result of child abuse while three out of four are under the age of 4. Over a century ago, there were no laws that protected children from physical abuse from their parents. Painful punishments were to some parents an everyday strategy of handling their misbehaved offspring, with no worries of being punished themselves. When her dad died, her mother tried make ends meet, taking one job after another to the point of realizing that she could no longer support Mary.

The girl was handed into the custody of a woman named Mary Score. The McCormacks gained possession of the child from the Department of Charities, but, as it was later proved, did so with falsified papers.

Mary McCormack remarried and moved with Mary Ellen to an apartment on West 41st Street, the place where the horrid story was finally revealed. One of them, Mrs. Connolly, felt quite concerned and asked a local religious worker, Etta Angell Wheeler, to check on the family. Making up a story about caring for an ill, home-bound old lady in the neighborhood, Etta and Connolly got the keys from the doorman and entered the apartment where Mary Ellen lived.

What they saw was beyond any words to describe. Etta later testified in the courtroom. From a pan set upon a low stove, she washed dishes, struggling with a frying pan which was about as heavy as herself. Across the table lay a brutal whip made of twisted leather strands.

But the saddest part of her story was written on her face. The look of suppression and misery, the face of a child unloved who has seen only the fearsome side of life. Ms Wheeler noted that the child was severely abused, undernourished, and ultimately neglected.

Reportedly, Mary was left with no shoes in December. At the same time, the introduction of a new law gave the state the power to free a child from patria potestas, the power of the male head of a family.

Laws protecting children from abuse were often created in response to widespread abuse and its damaging consequences, although legislative measures themselves often targeted particular forms of child cruelty or abuse. For example, in the first half of the thirteenth century, King Edward I of England introduced the Statute of Winchester, which made it illegal for women to sleep in the same bed as their toddlers.

Those who broke the law were heavily fined. This law was introduced in response to a high number of children dying by being accidentally suffocated in their sleep by their mothers.

In , the issue of child abuse was put under the spotlight when it was discovered that Mary Ellen, a child in New York, was being physically abused by her foster parents, who hit her, tied her to the bed and deprived her of food.

The police forces in New York could not interfere as child protection laws did not exist. There were, however, laws in place to protect domestic animals. As such, it was only possible to protect Mary Ellen from abuse after the law afforded the same level of protection to children as it did to animals. Today, the society has a significant number of branches, and the role it plays in detecting and stopping child abuse is as important as that of the government and municipal bodies.

Whilst child cruelty has shocked and disturbed our society for hundreds of years, the issue has not been widely addressed.