U.S. Leads the World in Children’s Deaths Due to Child Abuse

I started the morning in tears – never a good sign. But my tears turned to outrage and then resolution that something has to be done. I was watching a report on Morning Joe from BBC reporter Katty Kay.

Kay reported that the U.S. leads the world in children’s deaths due to child abuse and it appears to be getting worse since 2005 probably because of the economic downturn and a decrease in funding of preventative services.

In the U.S. one child dies from child abuse every five hours.

80.8% of those children are under the age of three, 46% of them are under the age of one.

Nearly 76% of the deaths were caused by the mother, the father or both parents. This is a tragedy that must be addressed and eliminated.

The U.S. child abuse death rate is 5 times high than the rate in the U.K. and 11 times higher than in Italy. Texas and Washington D.C. have the highest rate and Wyoming the lowest.

This should be a national outrage. The report suggests that some simple measures could be taken that would reduce the death rate.

Maryland had 17 children die from child abuse in 2009 which places the state fairly low in incidences when compared to neighboring states. Some states, including Alaska, Massachusetts and North Carolina  still haven’t reported their statistics.

I don’t know what the answers are but I intend to find out and will be contacting local hospitals and other agencies to see what can be done. If you would like to help or know of others working on eliminating childhood deaths from child abuse, please let me know. We can build a list of resources for all on ChesapeakeFamily.com and fight to keep our children safe.

Links to reports:

Child Maltreatment 2009 from the Department of Health and Human Services

BBC report: America’s Child Death Shame

Every Child Matters: Child Abuse and Neglect

Morning Joe: Katty Kay Report on Child Abuse Deaths in U.S.