CONTEST: CHILD ABUSE PREVALENT IN YOUR LOCALITY AND HOW THEY CAN BE AVOIDED||Pay 10% to Steemkidss

meymeyshops (66)in Steem Kids & Parents • 2 years ago (edited)

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Introduction

Every child is a gift from the Almighty God, no child is less important than the other. Whether you are a mother, father, guardian, teacher or just a neighbor, treat all children as a valuable inheritance from God.

CONTEST TIPS

Name the forms of child abuse known to you that are prevalent in your locality.

The list is inexhaustible but are hereby enumerated:

➡️. Excessive beating

I'll explain this abuse using a case of Kelechi, a 7 seven year old boy gotten out of wedlock. He lives with his grandma since his mother ran away from the supposed mother-in-law. The little boy is actually headstrong but at his age there should be an adequate discipline for those minor disobedience he might display. The African child is usually disciplined by giving some strokes of the cane depending on the level of disobedience. But Kelechi's grandma doesn't have limit she go in beating the seven year old boy for whatever she terms as disobedience.

One morning, Kelechi was reluctant to get dressed up for school. The grandmother spanked, shouted, the boy got afraid and ran outside. The woman chased the boy as he ran to the landlady's house who lives upstairs. She pursued Kelechi right inside the landlady's apartment, draged the boy and mercilessly beat him from the stairs to the ground floor. Someone was hearing the boy's deafening cry of help along with the sound of the woman's hand landing on Kelechi's body.

Playing with his mates

For several times in the past, she has picked up a quarrel with the neighbors over the excessive beating of the boy. They've encouraged her to change to another style of discipline but that resulted in picking up quarrel with them. She warned everyone to desist from telling her how to treat her child.

But this time the neighbor couldn't bear Kelechi's cry, the neighbor rushed to the scene of beating and pushed her away. "Do you want to kill him?" The neighbor shouted, "you are abusing him instead of disciplining him." Kelechi was breathing badly and have has his face swollen, his eyes red.

➡️. Starving the child

This is another heinous treatment some children are receiving from even their own parents or guardians. But especially to those children living as house helps in different homes. I've seen a child eating a 0-1-0 meal. This entails that the child eats only once a day, say around 4pm. Not because there's no food in the house but the househelp is seen as outcast, not meriting the normal daily meals. This too is child abuse.

➡️. Overburdening the child with loads of chores

You may think that only children given out for house-helping are abused. Not so with Mary a ten year old girl whose parents lives in our street. She is the second child having other four siblings. The father is a police officer who is on transfer to another State for official duty. The fat mother has made Mary a Jacki in the house. Almost everyday, Mary will come to our compound to fetch water carrying a 25liter container to fill a drum and other buckets available for the family. People have pleaded with the mother to buy a smaller container for her but to no avail. Some of us have refused helping her to carry the gallon of water just to see if it'll touch the mother so she can buy a smaller gallon since no one would load it on Mary. Yet nothing happened. Mary helps herself to lift the gallon on a pillar beside the tap, then lift it on her head. She does all other chores, run all errands before going to school.

Mary's father isn't different, he roars like a lion at the children while they will run to hide like rats from bussicats.

➡️. Deprivation of education even when other kids in the same home are giving ample opportunity to schooling.

Some of these house-helps were promised to be sent to school but when they arrive the guardian's home, things changed. They're blamed for their parents poverty and are deprived of even the basic elementary school.

➡️. Using the child for labour

This is the parents doing and must be jettisoned for what it is - child abuse. Every parent should bear how much children they're capable of catering for. When parents begat more than they could care for, they resort to giving out the children for labour and receive payments from the so called guardian who in turn maltreats the child sending him or her to hawk goods on the roads of the city.

Who is at risk the most, the male or female child?

The female child is often at risk of abuse. Why? They have mostly been abused sexually even by the man of the house who will warn the girl not to talk. Most girls have been abused while hawking groundnuts, satchet water etc, by huddlums who will invite them to sell goods to them inside an uncompleted buildings or inside mechanic workshops. Many of such girls have been impregnated and dumped.

What effect can they have on the kids?

Child abuse deprives the kids freedom to enjoy normal life.
It can lead to depression
It can hinder the growth of the child physically, emotionally and mentally.
It makes the child lose self worth.

How can the kids avoid them?

The kids are vulnerable, they most times don't have control over what happen to them. But if a child is faced with such challenge, he or she should do the following:
1.. Report the abuse to the authority, police or village head.
2.. Where the child can not reach out to the authority, the nearest neighbor should be made to know what you are going through.
3.. In the case of sexual abuse, the should shout on top her voice if she can not run.

Conclusion

Let's help to stop any form of child abuse in our localities. If you see something, don't keep quiet. TALK, help report any incident to the appropriate authority. Like Gideon mentioned at the beginning of this article, my landlord threatened to quit the woman from the compound. In fact, she called the woman at another occasion and gave her a quit notice. This helped to stop the abuse as the woman begged and begged, promising to stop the excessive beating of the boy. For months now, such beating have stopped.