Child Abuse and Intact Families

The Federal Labor spokeswoman on children and youth has recently called for the establishment of an Australian Commission for Children and Young people to help prevent child abuse. However, children's interests are best served in the context of their own family. That is, the safest and best place for a child, generally speaking, is with both biological parents.

No bureaucrat, no matter how well-intentioned, will ever come close to showing the love, attention and dedication to a child that a mother or a father does. In most cases, the biological parents of children are the ones who are willing to make the necessary self-sacrifices and self-denial to put the interests of children first. To argue that children need an advocate is to overlook the fact that they already have one: their own parents. And two biological parents are the best defence against abuse. The social science research on this is quite clear.

For example, former Human Rights Commissioner Mr Brian Burdekin has reported a 500 to 600 per cent increase in sexual abuse of girls in families where the adult male was not the natural father.

A recent study of Victorian child abuse victims found that 45 per cent lived with single parents. The report, by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, found that children who lived in natural two-parent families had a relatively low risk of abuse.

Also, the Australian Institute of Criminology notes that infants under the age of 12 months are the population group at highest risk of being murdered, and the most likely killer of a child is his or her non-biological father - "in other words, the mother's new partner."

Overseas evidence backs up the Australian evidence. A British study recently found that serious child abuse is lowest in intact married families, but 6 times higher in step families, 14 times higher in single mother families, 20 times higher in cohabiting biological families, and 33 times higher in cohabiting non-biological (boyfriend) families.

US data shows that children of divorced or never-married mothers are 6 to 30 times more likely to suffer abuse than are children raised by married biological parents.

A 1994 US study of 52,000 children found that those who are most at risk of being abused are those who are not living with both parents. And a Finnish study of nearly 4,000 ninth-grade girls found that "stepfather-daughter incest was about 15 times as common as father-daughter incest".

As one American family expert summmarises, "a child is sexually safer with her father than with any other man, from a stepfather to her mother's boyfriend to guys in the neighborhood. She is also safer with a father than without one. A child in a fatherless home faces a significantly higher risk of sexual abuse."

Now are there exceptions to the above evidence? Of course. But exceptions do not make the rule. If we are concerned about the safety and well-being of children, then we should do all we can to shore up marriage and family. Support for families must be our highest priority. Government policy must focus on delivering support to children through their families, not apart from families. It is a loving family, not a faceless bureaucrat, that can best look after our children.

Family Update, July-August 2003, p. 8