Violence as a Stressor for Children Around the World

Growing up, I had a few friends who experienced domestic abuse or violence within the home. In middle school, a child was killed by their relative due to neglence of the family members fighting. A child lost his life because adults were not able to control their emotions especially in front of children. Domestic violence is very prevalent in the United States, and many children witness or are targeted by violence.  One of my close friends experience violence from a family member and sometimes she would come to my grandmother house to hide out until her family member calmed down. Most times, her family member was drunk and took their frustrations out on her. We were in elementary and middle school. The violence lasted til high school and then her grandmother decided to take her out the home, which was the best thing for my friend. However, it did affect her emotionally growing up. She was very quiet and afraid to speak up to people because she was afraid that she may get hit or have to defend herself in a fight. As I was conducting research on this topic in other countries, I came across an internet article stating how the number of domestic violence cases against children in Australia are fairly high. This is very alarming.

In Australia, the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (2005) Personal Safety Survey found that of all women who had experienced partner violence since the age of 15 years and had children in their care during the relationship, 59 percent reported that the violence had been witnessed by children, 37 percent that the violence had not been witnessed by children and four percent that they did not know whether the violence had been witnessed by children in their care (n=11,800). The Australian component of the International Violence Against Women Survey found that of women who had experienced partner violence and had children living with them at the time, 36 percent reported that their children had witnessed a domestic violence incident (n=1,730; Mouzos & Makkai 2004). Taylor’s (2006) analysis of data from the ACT’s Family Violence Intervention Program database revealed that for the year 2003–04, children were recorded as being present at 44 percent of domestic violence incidents (n=2,793).  A number of estimates about the extent of children’s exposure to domestic violence have been made in recent years. Pinheiro’s (2006) report for UNICEF estimated that between 133 million and 275 million children around the world witness frequent domestic violence each year. Those numbers are very high and globally something should be done to prevent such cases (Richards, 2011).





Richards, Kelly. (2011, June). Children's exposure to domestic violence in Australia.[Abstract]. Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, 49, 401-420. Retrieved from http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/401-420/tandi419.html.