The following two research papers that were released very recently, bring again to the public square the growing, and often lifelong harms, of child abuse. 

Whilst these research offerings did not specifically look at contributing factors, the Dalgarno Institute continues to prompt a deeper look below the surface of these appalling statistics. 

The ‘causal and correlate’ debate around alcohol and other drugs in the domestic violence space is often wielded by pro-drug and alcohol defending advocates to ‘inform’ us that at worst it is correlate, as if somehow that makes substance use – legal or illicit – less culpable. Whilst we concur one cannot draw conclusions from ‘silence’ in these data sets, we have enough data on record to know that Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) are more often involved than not in – if not cause – then frequency, intensity, and ferocity of abuses on children. 

To our thinking this is no coincidence; with the growing cultural dysfunction and the turning to substances in self-medicating various ‘vicissitudes of life’ and the often-simple hedonic engagement with ‘feel good’ chemicals to assuage boredom. 

Regardless of motivators, without serious culture interventions, including the prevention and not promotion of substance use via decriminalisation and other permission models, we are only going to see these heinous harms increase.  

AOD and Community Health Policies and practices cannot be siloed from each other, and a far more serious campaign of prevention and demand reduction is vital in this era of growing violence against children. 

The prevalence and impact of child maltreatment in Australia: findings from the Australian Child Maltreatment Study: The Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS) is a landmark study for Australia. The ACMS research team has generated the first, nationally representative data on the prevalence of each of the five types of child maltreatment in Australia, and the associated health impacts through life.

The ACMS has found that child maltreatment is widespread and Australians who experience it are substantially more likely to have:

• severe mental health problems
• severe health risk behaviours
• higher health service utilisation.

(Source: https://apo.org.au/node/322153)

Listen to her. Act now: the experiences and impact of child abuse on Australian girls: There remains a relative paucity of evidence on the range of abusive behaviours experienced by girls during childhood. Importantly, in the context of increasing awareness of the importance of learning from lived experience there is limited research in this field which draws directly upon the experiences of children and young people with lived and living experience of domestic and family, including child abuse. Released to coincide with the 2023 United Nations International Day of the Girl, this summary report seeks to contribute to that gap in current research.

(Source: Listen to her. Act now: the experiences and impact of child abuse on Australian girls (apo.org.au)

Also see

• The ‘Unleashing’ Of Domestic, Familial & Intimate Partner Violence – The Drug Factor.
• Role of Illicit Drug Use in Domestic Violence (Aust)
• The link between alcohol/drug addiction and domestic violence