INFORMATION

SOME FACTS ABOUT ABUSE

1. A child is abused in the USA, on an average, every two and a half minutes. That translates to the fact that somewhere in the world, a child is abused every six and a half seconds.

2. Abused children are more susceptible to sexual predators.

3. In the USA, approximately 4 children die each day as a direct result of abuse.

4. Abuse is not always visible, especially with adults. Adults would rather hide the signs of abuse than speak out about it.

5. Children find adults difficult to talk to about having been abused, because adults don’t want to believe them.  For adults, it is socially unacceptable to talk about their abuse.

6. Abuse knows no social barriers, no age barriers and no gender barriers.

7. Perpetrators make their victims feel that the victims are the guilty ones in abuse situations.

8. Abuse is not limited to just sexual abuse. It can be social, mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, spatial and many other forms.

9. Emotional scars from abuse are, generally, a life sentence.

10. 1.64% of children under 4 years of age will be abused.

11. More children under 5 years of age (in the USA) die of abuse than from any other single cause.

12. Only 1 in 3 cases of abuse (estimated) are ever officially reported.

13. Fear is the main weapon used by the perpetrators of abuse against their victims.

14. To ask for help is not the weaker option and is not the cowards way out. It takes courage and strength to speak out.

WHAT WE CAN OFFER

It needs to be said, right from the beginning, that the range of services will be constantly changing due to factors such as who is in the team, what country you come from, what your cultural background may be, what you actually need and many more factors.

We say this because the project is a growing and changing one as we endeavour to provide a service as is needed. However, our resources are limited in the early stages of our development. Many of our team of volunteers (yes, we are a voluntary organisation) are victims of abuse of some form or another and so they are able to associate with your feelings through experience. As we expand, we will see more volunteers joining us including professional people to whom referrals can be made, if necessary.

We are building a data base of local organisations and groups that are able to help people, depending upon the form of abuse you are experiencing or have experienced.

Contact with us is recommended through our website using the special form provided. The information in these contacts remain strictly anonymous, unless requested otherwise by you. The reason for this is that we are very aware of the fact that people often feel a degree of shame when coming to deal with their specific problem. A very small team of people will actually see the contact form and these will be very carefully screened to ensure confidentiality and privacy are maintained at all times. When information is referred to someone who will offer counselling,  your Email address, and any other identification will not be given to them as all communication with you will happen at the one point. After contact is made back, you may choose to be put directly in touch with your counsellor, who does have the right to not accept direct contact.

For many, our service to you will be just finding someone to hear your cry and to allow you to talk to someone about the pain you are suffering as a result of the abuse. You may just want to “get it off your chest”.

DEFINITION OF ABUSE: The dictionary defines abuse in the following way - to use wrongly; to mistreat; to insult; or to revile.

The reality is that abuse occurs whenever someone does something to someone else that causes them to be upset, belittled, put down, insulted, hurt (in any way) or made to feel unworthy. It must also be seen that there is a very fine line between abuse and other applications. These will be shown as examples where it is believed applicable.

In the above, we have endeavoured to bring together a list of the varieties of abuse, many of which have become acceptable in modern society. We are trying to make people aware of the vast range of actions that can be deemed as abusive. We don't claim this list to be complete so we do ask that, if you know another type of abuse not listed here, please use the contact form to tell us the name of the abuse and a similar type description to what is used here. Nor do we claim that these are listed in some order of importance. They are listed simply in the order our research revealed them. We also welcome submissions to extend the basic information that appears in the pop up window as introductory description of each abuse type.

There is often a crossover of types of abuse so that one type of abuse may be found as a part of another type of abuse (example: verbal abuse can be a type of child abuse).