Pete's Story: Child Abuse And Neglect

"Over the years, my mum kicked and beat me, throttled me, threw me down the stairs and pushed me into a scalding hot bath. She once held my head under water and another time she shoved a full bar of soap in my mouth. There are too many incidents to recount “ (“Pete’s Story”). Pete thought what was happening to him was normal. But then at the age of 12 , he knew it wasn't normal. He didn't know what was happening to him was child abuse. Child abuse has been happening all over the world to young children, but many of these things are kept hidden because the children are too scared to speak on the issues at home. People sometimes know what is going on but choose not to call the authorities because they feel it's not their concern. People often …show more content…
Sometimes child abuse goes unreported and unpunished. This can happen when adults often overlook the evidence or when the child victims do not complain because they are ashamed and or fear of retaliation. For example child abuse victim Pete says, “My neighbours must have heard the raised voices all the time, but no-one complained or did anything about it” (“Pete’s Story”). He is explaining that what happened to him no one ever did anything about it .The word abuse comes from the latin term abūsus meaning "misuse," or "use wrongly." The most serious cases of child abuse can end in …show more content…
But however, medical researchers have found that survivors of child abuse may experience long lasting effects. According to experts, “survivors of child abuse, even those who experience mistreatment at an age when most people think they are too young to remember it, struggle most of their lives to put their ordeals behind them. Some victims seem to succeed—eventually—in overcoming the abuse, while others may remain haunted and crippled by their experiences throughout their lives”). The effects on the victim range because most survivors of child abuse forget what happen to them, or most of them put the abuse behind them. However some victims seem to succeed in overcoming abuse. It was reported that 33 percent of male and 24 percent of female alcoholics had been physically abused as children. Study claims ,that sexual abuse also frequently results in anxiety disorders, while many kinds of depression have been caused by emotional abuse. The enormous difficulties that survivors endure have prompted many of them to band together to form group support organizations, such as the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, founded in 1988 by abuse survivor Barbara Blaine. Such groups enable victims to break their silence, share their experiences—in many cases, for the very first time—and discover they are not