Legal aspects of child abuse

Abstract

The legal responses to child abuse cannot be analysed without prior reference to the definition of the term. Thus defining the term child abuse is the first step to be undertaken in the effective regulation of child abuse. It must be pointed out at once that this is no easy task. The fact that there is no consensus on a definition is evidence of the difficulties involved in defining the term. Child abuse has in fact been variously defined, and there is no widely accepted definition. One finds narrow definitions which emphasis serious physical abuse, (in Kempe's articles or in the American Bar Association's standards relating to abuse or neglect) broader definitions emphasising maltreatment (for example in Fontana) and broader definitions still such David Gil's which includes any interference with the optimal development of children.