Hungary on list of OECD state doing little to protect children from physical abuse

New research on child maltreatment, published by the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, finds that almost 3,500 children under the age of 15 die every year from child abuse in the 27 richest nations of the world. While only Spain, Greece, Italy, Ireland and Norway seem to have an exceptionally low incidence of child maltreatment deaths, levels in some Central European countries, especially Hungary, are four to six times higher. Hungary is listed after the United States, Mexico, and Portugal, as the OECD member with most child maltreatment deaths. We spoke to the head of the UNICEF office in Budapest, Edit Kecskemeti, about the results of the study:

"This comparative study done by UNICEF only includes OECD member states, twenty-seven developed countries, and does not deal with the abuse of children but only ranks countries according to the levels of child maltreatment deaths because it is the only data that we can compare among other countries. It's true that on this list, Hungary ranked fourth."

This is quite an alarming figure...

"The position is a little astonishing because it means that the levels of child maltreatment deaths are four or six times higher than the average in these developed countries."

The countries before us are quite far away from us, such as Portugal and Mexico, but what about the countries in the region? How are they doing?

"Most of the countries, like Slovakia and Poland, have similar problems and are more or less doing the same as Hungary. The reason for this might be that poverty and stress caused by the social and economic changes appear to be one of the major factors for the high number of child maltreatment."

Roughly, how many children die a year from child maltreatment?

"It's approximately between twenty and twenty-five per year. This study only deals with children under the age of fifteen. We also have to point out that the number of infants under one year is especially high among this death number."

This is the death number but we know fairly little about the number of cases where the children don't actually die but are being tortured.

"All over the world, the number of abuse cases is difficult to assess. We only know of cases where there has been official intervention - the police are called or the children are treated in hospital, but usually the figures represent only the top of the iceberg. Some studies conclude that of in every 150 abuse cases, one case usually leads to the death of the child."

Apart from calling attention to these figures, does UNICEF actually recommend any solutions to this problem? Surely, a parent who abuses his child and reads these figures is not very impressed. So what kind of prevention can actually be introduced?

"One of the main things is a good legal background; laws that try to prevent child abuse. The study shows that out of the twenty-seven countries, legislation on the corporal punishment of children has only been adopted in seven. Hungary, for example, hasn't adopted such a law yet. Of course, legislation alone will not reduce the number of child abuse cases, so there are a number of other measures that should be taken. For example, awareness campaigns to change the attitude of the public. Most people in Hungary would allow some kind of corporal punishment for children, like spanking, for example. This attitude has to be changed and it surely will take a lot of time."