Abuse during childhood in England and Wales: March 2024

Product Description

Estimates on prevalence and type of abuse experienced during childhood, based on findings of people aged 18 years and over from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW).

There is not a specific offence of child abuse in law, but practitioners have come to define child abuse based on the laws designed to protect children from harm.

Child abuse is any form of maltreatment of a child. Somebody may abuse or neglect a child by inflicting harm, or by failing to act to prevent harm. Children may be abused in a family or in an institutional or community setting by those known to them or by others. Abuse involving technology can take place wholly online, or technology may be used to facilitate offline abuse. Children may be abused by an adult or adults, or another child or children.

For the purposes of the estimates in this bulletin, emotional abuse and physical abuse are captured only where the perpetrator was a person aged 18 years and over. As a result, experiences of emotional and physical abuse by another child are not included in this measure.