Assessment, treatment and prevention of child abuse

ABSTRACT

This paper briefly discusses the thorny issues pertaining to the assessment, treatment and prevention of child abuse in Pakistan. Unfortunately, the services available for the abused in Pakistani society are neither multidisciplinary nor very well-integrated as illustrated in case A and B. As a results, the child, the family, the teachers, the school officials, the health professionals and other providers become confused by the inconsistent advice and information from the untrained staff. Often, the therapists in Pakistan are forced to work in isolation with child-abuse cases and end up with predominance of frustration and failure. We desperately need an interaction between psychology and law to do justice to our much neglected cases of child abuse and exploitation. When children in a society are abused, the damage is done not only to the victims, it is transmitted to the whole nation resulting in a pattern of unhealthy development and loss of responsible as well as emotionally stable adult citizens. Therefore, immediate psychological and medico-legal interventions are recommended at local, national and international levels by all of us