violence against children WORLD REPORT ON - CRIN

“There were teachers [at the ‘orphanage’] who exceeded their authorityand could beat us for no reason. They know that children have nowhere to turn.And they could do anything they wanted.”Child, Europe and Central Asia, 2003 II180Violence against Children in care and justice institutionspoor children from their families – often judgedto be delinquent or depraved – and protectingthem in residential institutions. Meanwhile, incolonial and post-colonial settings, indigenousor aboriginal children were also seen as needingto be ‘saved’ from what were judged to be‘inferior’ cultures. In Australia and Canada,for example, entire generations of such childrenwere removed from their families, placedin residential schools, and denied their ownculture, clothing and language. 11 Systems of‘juvenile justice’ in Europe and the Americasbegan to introduce residential detention institutionsthat were separate from adult prisonsin the late 19th and early 20th century.In some places, the development of large-scaleinstitutions for children came later, either todeal with profound social distress after suchevents as the two World Wars; or as part of anideological commitment to ‘socialised’ childcare. This was the pattern in many communistcountries, notably those in the post-1945USSR sphere of influence.Second thoughts aboutinstitutional careAs understanding about child developmentgrew, some countries began to cut back onthe use of residential care institutions, andto consider options other than detention forchildren in conflict with the law. Beginning inthe second half of the 20th century, it becamerecognised that large, closed institutions couldnot support physical, social, emotional andcognitive development in any way comparableto that in a family setting. 12Today, social policy ‘best practice,’ reflectingthe CRC and other human rights obligations,aims to provide as many children as possiblewith an upbringing in a family, and access to amainstream school and community life. However,the process of de-institutionalisation, andrecognition of the damaging effects of institutionalisationon children, is at different stagesaround the world. In countries where institutionalisationof children was never taken up onany major scale, the care institutions that diddevelop have mostly been small and run by privateor religious institutions.In some countries the level of youth crime hasbecome a high-profile political concern, andthere has also been some regression towardsinstitutional detention, even when actual childoffender rates have fallen. In many countries,children in conflict with the law have typicallybeen detained within the same institutions asthose for adult offenders, and few countrieshave invested in real alternatives to detention.Unfortunately, the numbers of childrenwho lose the protection of their families andrequire alternative forms of care are growingfor a variety of reasons. These include thechanging social patterns accompanying rapidurbanisation, natural disasters, armed conflict,widespread population displacement, and theHIV/AIDS pandemic.Factors contributing toviolence in institutionsViolence against children in care and justicesystems is legitimised by long-held attitudesand behaviours, and failures in both law and