April is both Child Abuse Prevention Month and Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Some of the same supports, programs, services and policies that can keep children safe from maltreatment can also prevent adults from experiencing domestic and sexual violence.
Significant risk factors for child abuse, domestic and sexual violence include women’s financial stability, employment stability, and economic and occupational status, as well as poverty among women and children.
The impact is often acute stress that can cause conditions such as poor mental health, alcohol and drug abuse, which can result in different types of violence. This causes children and adults to not feel safe and secure in their home and with a parent, caregiver, spouse or partner. Child abuse and sexual violence aren’t confined within a family. These acts of violence can take place at work, and by strangers and caregivers. By addressing root causes of risk, child abuse and sexual assault can be reduced and stopped.
We Know What Works
Preventing violence before it happens is possible when adults have access to supports including:
- Investments in family support programs such as parent education and access to providers such as nurses and social workers.
- Building women and families’ financial stability and economic self-sufficiency and mobility through access to affordable child care; increasing health equity through offering Medicaid; closing the wage equity gap, increasing the minimum wage and paying a family-sustaining wage.
- Providing family friendly workplace policies that support and strengthen families such as paid parental leave, paid family and medical leave, paid sick and safe leave and health and wellness benefits.
The Story in Numbers
- One in seven children in the U.S. experience abuse or neglect.
- One in four U.S. parents said there have been times in the past year when they did not have enough money for basic needs.
- 35% of women will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime.
- Adults experiencing four or more adverse childhood experiences are 2.2 times more likely to have heart attack and 6 times more likely to have clinical depression.
- North Carolina spends $2 billion every year on child maltreatment, most reacting to abuse or neglect that has already happened.
What is Child Abuse?
Child abuse is physical, sexual, emotional and/or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child, especially by a parent or a caregiver.What is Sexual Violence?
Sexual violence means physical sexual acts without the consent of the other person or when the other person is unable to give consent. Sexual violence includes sexual assault, rape, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual harassment and stalking.
Find out more about how employers can support employees who have experienced sexual violence and create healthy and inclusive workplaces.
Learn more about prevention strategies and how to take action from Positive Childhood Alliance North Carolina and from the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault.