This week in Australia, Child Protection Week, many events will be held to raise awareness of child abuse and neglect.
Did you know, that in 2005-2006:
- There were over 34,000 children were the subject of a substantiated claim of abuse, neglect or harm? The number of child protection notifications doubled in the 5 years from 2001-2002.
- There were over 27,000 children on care and protection orders? That’s an increase of 32% of the past 5 years.
- There were over 25,000 children requiring out-of-home care, which is an increase of 35% over the previous 5 years.
That is worrying enough, but apparently there is an overrepresentation in these cases by indigenous children, children aged under 1 year and children from one parent families. For example, indigenous children are 6.6 times more likely than the rest of the population to be on a care and protection order, and 7 times more likely to be in out-of-home care.
