By Bridget Spinks
AN Australian government resource sheet released last year shows that of the thousands of child abuse cases reported to state and territory authorities, only half of these notifications are fully investigated and finalised and even less are “substantiated”.
The 2009 Resource Sheet published by the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) and compiled by Leah Bromfield and Mel Irenyi, identified that there were just over 317,000 reported cases of suspected child abuse from across Australia. This Resource Sheet used data contained in a 2007-08 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report titled ‘Child Protection Australia 2007-08’.
Fewer than 150,000 investigations into these notifications were finalised and of these reports, only 55,120 were substantiated.
Only Queensland requires that a notification of child abuse be fully investigated, the AIHW report states.
“A child protection notification is assessed by the department to determine whether it requires an investigation; whether it should be dealt with by other means, such as referral to other organisations or to family support services; or whether no further protective action is necessary or possible,” in all other states, the AIHW report stated.
Ms Bromfield and Ms Ireny’s resource sheet highlighted how reported incidence of child abuse has gradually increased since 1998-1999, when the AIHW first began compiling national figures of child protection activity.
In the period 1998-99, more than 103,000 notifications of child abuse were reported to child protection authorities but due to lack of substantiated evidence from Northern Territory, a substantiated figure could not be provided for that period.
In the period 1999-00, of the 107,134 reported cases of suspected child abuse, only 24,732 were substantiated.
This 2009 government Resource Sheet titled ‘Child abuse and neglect statistics’ outlined that the “Substantiations are categorised into one of four maltreatment types: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and neglect”.
“Emotional abuse” made up 38 per cent of the primary forms of substantiated maltreatment types in Australia and was the largest form of abuse in Australia for the period 2007-08. In the same period, cases of “neglect” made up 29 per cent and substantiated cases of “physical abuse” made up 23 per cent, where “neglect” refers to “the failure (usually by the parent) to provide for a child’s basic needs, including failure to provide adequate food, shelter, clothing, supervision, hygiene or medical attention”.
Just 10 per cent (5,491 cases) of substantiated Australian cases in 2007-08 were regarded as “sexual abuse”.
The majority of these cases of sexual abuse occurred in NSW (3,875) while the least amount occurred in the ACT (45).
The authors of the AIFS add to the report that these “Child protection statistics tell us how many children come into contact with child protection services”.
Compilers of the AIFS Resource Sheet, Ms Bromfield and Ms Irenyi, note that the analysed statistics are limited in that they could include children who may not have been abused, and may exclude children who have been abused.
AIHW data is captured such that “Each new notification or substantiation does not necessarily represent a different child”.