One in three children and adolescents with disabilities (motor, sensory or cognitive) has already suffered some type of violence, whether physical, psychological or sexual. The data is part of a recently released global study.
The survey, published on the 15th in the specialized journal The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, concluded that, worldwide, 31.7% of children and adolescents aged 0 to 18 years were victims of violence.
In addition, the work points out that the risk of a child or adolescent with a disability being a victim of aggression is twice as high compared to those who do not have a disability.
The data until then available on violence in this group were from a 2013 WHO (World Health Organization) report, which indicated a 3.7 times greater risk for children and adolescents with disabilities to suffer aggression, and an estimated prevalence of 26. .7%.
In less than ten years, there has therefore been a 5% increase in the prevalence rate, despite a lower relative risk of experiencing violence than previously found in the WHO report, by including more countries in the sample.
The meta-analysis search was based on 386 published articles containing the words “disability”, “violence”, “children” and “adolescents” in English and Chinese from August 2010 to September 2020. Studies that did not have data on type of violence suffered or disability were excluded.
In the end, the survey had records of 16.8 million children and adolescents with disabilities, from 25 countries, who had suffered some type of violence.
The researchers also identified that children with some type of mental disability (34.4%) or with some cognitive or learning impairment (33%) are the ones who suffer the most violence, while those with sensory disabilities (27.4%) , physical (25.6%) or chronic diseases (20.5%) are relatively less vulnerable.
As for the most common types of violence suffered by these individuals, the largest number of records report emotional violence (36.2%), followed by physical violence (31.7%), neglect or abandonment (19.4%) and, finally, , sexual (11.3%).
According to research, nearly 4 out of 10 children and adolescents with disabilities experience aggression from their peers. Bullying (37.7%) and cyberbullying (23.4%) are the most frequent types of violence in this context.
Other identified aggressors are adults who abuse (26.4%) and intimate contacts (14.4%). The article also highlights that the risk of suffering physical, emotional or sexual violence by partners is about four times greater in adolescents with disabilities than among those who do not have special needs.
The estimation of violence in this group of individuals with some type of vulnerability, according to the authors, makes it possible to identify factors that may be linked to the problem and, thus, create public policies aimed at potential victims.
For psychologist Denis Ferreira, a professor at the Várzea Grande University Center in Cuiabá and a doctoral student in Collective Health at the Faculty of Medical Sciences of Santa Casa de São Paulo, studies that seek to trace indicators of violence in children and adolescents with disabilities have grown in the last decade. and also in people with these conditions in the population as a whole, which helps to identify how this group is today one of the most subject to this type of abuse.
“Why is the risk greater in this group? These children have difficulty communicating and being taken seriously because they have some cognitive disability, because they are sometimes institutionalized and, therefore, are considered more violent and problematic”, he says.
“A child who is deaf and dumb, for example, will not be able to communicate that he is suffering sexual violence, and this is used by the aggressors”, he explains.
As with almost all health indicators, the survey also found higher rates of violence in low- and middle-income countries compared to higher-income countries.
“I usually say that violence is not just a shot or a knife, it is also inequality, the lack of access to school, health, rights. And with children and adolescents with disabilities it is no different, especially in a context where many do not even have access to education or care spaces”, evaluates the psychologist.
According to a 2020 survey, about 11.2% of children and adolescents worldwide have some mental, sensory or severe epilepsy.
According to Maria Lúcia Bourroul, a pediatrician responsible for the pediatric outpatient clinic for chronic and complex diseases at the Instituto da Criança, linked to Hospital das Clínicas de São Paulo, these rates of violence are alarming and expose another obstacle, the medical perspective.
“In our outpatient clinic, reports of violence suffered by our patients are rare. Does this mean that they do not exist? No, it is necessary to consider that, in order to identify aggression, it is often necessary for a pediatrician to have a specialized look at how that illness can be linked to a past of violence or abuse,” he says.
Bourroul also reinforces the importance of support programs for children and adolescents who are victims of violence.
“There is often a situation of exhaustion of parents or caregivers because of the special needs of the child, and this can lead to neglect, which is often also difficult to detect. This neglect can be emotional, psychological”, he says.
For her, the numbers must be underreported, especially for emotional violence. “In addition to the WHO survey, today we have data that one in ten families has a person with a disability. It is a huge contingent of people to be ignored and violated”, she evaluates.
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