Child Abuse and Neglect

This publication provides an overview of the situation of children with intellectual disabilities in twenty two European countries, with a particular focus on five areas: protection against abuse, family support and (de-)institutionalisation, health, education, and participation of children.

The NCF quarterly no. 36 "Abused Child. Theory, Research and Practice" consists of statistics concerning child abuse and neglect in Poland eg. experiences of physical and emotional violence, child abandonment, sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children,  mortality of children and youth, child poverty. The purpose of it was to present the scale and nature of these threats on the basis of what is recorded or investigated, but also identify issues about which very little is known.

Save the Children and Handicap International jointly released a report that aims to bring sexual violence against children with disabilities out of the shadows. The report highlights that this vulnerable group of children suffer sexual abuse at the hands of perpetrators who operate with almost total impunity, and that almost as shocking as the abuse itself is the fact that so little is known about it. The report seeks to make this issue more visible and to challenge governments and communities, including the international community, to tackle it head-on.

This handbook is designed to help organisations which already have experience of trying to protect children from exploitation or other forms of abuse to assess whether they are using the most appropriate methods. This means, reviewing the methods you use to prevent children being exploited or abused; and finding out whether a more detailed understanding of the experience of a particular category of children - children on the move - helps you identify alternative or additional ways to protect such children and to enable them to turn their hopes and ambitions into reality.