Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Hidden Epidemic in the United States

There is an epidemic in the US that many are unaware of how severe it really is. While every year there are 3 million reports of this experts estimate it to be actually 3 times more than that. 4 Children die everyday because of this 3 out of those 4 are under the age of 4. You may now be wondering what this epidemic is. Well it is Child Abuse and Neglect. After hearing the story of Aiden Waller I asked myself what can I do to stop this. I wrote to every Representative in my state. I even wrote to the president. But its not enough. So many are unaware of how bad this is. So let me educate you today. Statistics show a report of child abuse is made every 10 seconds. Child abuse occurs at every Socio-economic level across ethnic and cultural lines within all regions and all levels of education. An estimate of 906,000 Children are victims of abuse and neglect a year. The rate of victimized is 12.3 children per every 1000. Children ages 0-3 are most likely to experience Child Abuse. These are BABIES, they are victimized at a rate of 16.4 per every 1,000. 1,500 deaths occur every year as a result of child Abuse and neglect that is a rate of other 4 deaths a day. 79% of those children killed are under the age of 4. Have I opened your eyes yet?
So what can we do to help end this epidemic. First you can take what you have learned here and educate others. Open their eyes. There are many organizations out there designed to help prevent child abuse. Research them see where you can help. Write letters to your states representatives and open their eyes. Do not let them be blinded by this anymore. Most states do not come down on the abusers very hard. The Department of Family and Children's services needs to become stronger. They lack in many areas of helping these children. They don't do their jobs well enough. Too many children slip through the cracks. Our system does not work. It needs to be rebuilt. Join me in this fight to help our children, as they are our future.

1 comment:

Corey~living and loving said...

well said Colleen. Through my work I see stuff like this all the time. it is heartbreaking. I am so proud of you for taking a stand and doing all you can.
I will post a blog about it soon. I'm with you!