Child Abuse Baby Brianna was only 6 months old when she died by the hands of her own family. Her father and uncle beat and raped her during the short 6 months of her life. There were bite marks from her own mothers’ teeth, and her body was covered in bruises and scars from head to toe. More of her body was damaged than the area that was healthy. Her skull was fractured in several places and the wounds were old and new, which meant the beating had been going on throughout her whole life and she never once received care. Despite her horrible condition, Brianna could have been saved. Other family members knew about this abuse, but never said a word. They claimed they didn’t want to get involved. Eventually the innocent infant died, after her father and uncle threw her up to the ceiling and let her fall and crash onto the ground. Before the family was sent away to jail for their life sentence, they buried the child in the back yard in the cage where they kept their garbage and ordered that nobody went near it. Baby Brianna should never have been treated this way. No child deserves to be treated this way, yet millions are each year. One of the most difficult social issues of the 21st century America is child abuse.

Many U.S. children are neglected, abused, and beaten by the people they love most; their parents. The cycle of child abuse must be stopped. The four main types of child abuse are physical, emotional, sexual, and neglect. Physical abuse is usually the easiest form of abuse to recognize. Physical abuse can be things like punching, hitting, burning, kicking, scratching, or any action that causes physical pain and could leave a mark. Any type of sexual contact between the parent or other adult and the child is Sexual Abuse. If the abuser is related to the child it’s called incest. The most difficult abuse to identify is emotional abuse because there are no outward signs of the abuse most of the time. Emotional abuse is when parents’ anger and yelling towards a child goes too far or when parents constantly criticize, threaten, or dismiss their kids until their feelings of self-worth and their self esteem are ruined. Although it may not seem as terrible as physical abuse, it can cause just as much damage. The last type is neglect, which occurs when a parent does not provide the food, housing, clothes, medical care, or supervision that a child needs. Emotional neglect is when a parent doesn't give the child enough emotional support or pays very little or no attention to a child. Any of these four main types, or any other form of child abuse, even when it’s just mild, should be taken very seriously and reported immediately. Any offender of child abuse should be punished as much as the law allows them to be.

Child abuse has been around since there were children around to be abused. The first laws against child abuse were established in 1875 in New York and eventually other states followed with similar laws which said that any type of abuse against a child was illegal. Over time these laws were modified and made stricter and more serious. Today laws against child abuse are extremely stern and child abusers will spend up to a life sentence in jail, if the abuse is serious enough. Cruelty against children is taken very seriously and there are many programs and companies dedicated to stopping child abuse, yet it still happens all the time. More than 5 children die each day because of child abuse, and a case of child abuse is reported ever 10 seconds. There have been many attempts to stop child abuse such as the various laws, websites, and programs dedicated to stopping it. However, these obviously aren’t enough if so many children are still being abused to this day.

One way child abuse can be prevented is to make everyone more aware about child abuse. If people know how to detect if a child is being abused and know that they need to report it than they can help stop abusive parents