The Facts about Children and Abuse

1. The Ministry of Health tells us that child abuse is more likely to occur in homes where partner violence occurs, than in homes where it does not.
2. Children of battered women are fifteen times more likely to be abused as children than other children.
3. If a woman is beaten when she is pregnant, then the risk to the child of being beaten after it is born is greatly increased.
4. In the 1997 Child, Youth and Family (CYFS) report on fatal child abuse, 60% of children killed came from homes where male partner violence was present, and 40% were killed by that man.
5. In 1996, 18 children under the age of 20 were killed by injury purposely inflicted by other persons. 
6. 75% of children in NZ women's refuges who had witnessed the abuse of their mother showed behavioural problems severe enough to require specialist clinical assistance.
7. At the 30,340 family violence incidents attended by NZ Police in 96/97 28,621 children under 10 years, and 9,844 between 10 and 16 years were present.
8. Approximately 7,000 women and 10,000 children are assisted by the National Women’s Refuge Collective every year.
9. Children and youth who have been abused or neglected at home are more vulnerable to other types of abuse, especially sexual abuse.
10. A study by the STOP Programme in Christchurch shows that each child sex abuser has an average of 50.2 victims.
11. Of 27 OECD countries, New Zealand recorded the third highest child homicide rate of children up to the age of 14. 

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