This chapter appears in Child Maltreatment in Residential Care: History, Research, and Current Practice, a volume of research examining the institutionalization of children, child abuse and neglect in residential care, and interventions preventing and responding to violence against children living in out-of-home care settings around the world.
Abstract
In this study, we investigated the prevalence of abuse (i.e., punishments, exploitation, and sexual abuse) experienced or witnessed by Romanian children placed in long-term residential centers in 1999. Data based on a nationally representative sample of 1511 (802 boys and 709 girls) children with ages between 7 and 19 years (M = 12.67; SD = 2.84) and living in 53 long-term residential centers was analyzed to identify the prevalence of abuse awareness and victimization.
The results showed that nearly five in ten reported experiencing or being aware (45% and 50%) of punishments administered by institutional staff. Moreover, nearly three in ten (29%) and four in ten (41%) reported experiencing and/or being aware of exploitation practices. Nearly five in one hundred (4.8%) declared they were forced to have sex, and nearly twenty in one hundred (23%) acknowledged having awareness of children being sexually abused. These results also suggested that reformation of the child protection care system, implemented within long-term residential systems and designed to decrease the level of abuse, had unsatisfactory results. Consequently, children in traditional and family-type institutions experienced or witnessed more abuse. Additionally, children placed in mixed-type institutions were less likely to witness or experience abuse compared to children who lived in the other types of institutions.