The prevalence of child maltreatment in the Netherlands across a 5-year period☆
Section snippets
Participants
Sentinels, i.e. professionals from organizations within several occupational branches (Table 1) were sampled by randomly selecting organizations and sentinels within these organizations. In order to obtain a geographically representative sample, the number of sentinels within each occupational group was equal across five zones, covering geographical areas in the Netherlands with approximately equal numbers of children. Whenever an organization or professional did not participate, a new
Prevalence estimates
96,175 children or 2.7% of all children were victim of child maltreatment in the Netherlands in 2010, based on sentinel reports (Table 2). Child sexual abuse was the least reported type of maltreatment by the sentinels: 3% of all victims experienced this type of abuse. Physical and emotional neglect were the most frequently reported types of maltreatment, with 37% and 72% of all victims, respectively (Table 2). Numbers of maltreated children per type of maltreatment do not match with the total
Discussion
The overall prevalence of child maltreatment in the Netherlands has remained relatively stable across a 5-year period. The second Netherlands’ Prevalence study of Maltreatment of children and youth shows a prevalence of 118,836 children or 33.8 per 1,000 children between 0 and 17 years of age in 2010, based on sentinel and CPS reports, with highest prevalence rates for physical and emotional neglect. This prevalence rate based on sentinel-reports did not differ significantly from the prevalence
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Renate Bahlman, Marleen de Borst, Marjanne van Esveld, Annette van Noort, Angela Scheepers, Anne-Fleur Vischer, Joke Larrewijn-Schillemans, Anita Pronk, Lieneke Jooren, Rosanne Schoorl, Sake Schoorl en Aram Limpens for their assistance during various phases of this project.
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The study was supported by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, and by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (MJBK: VICI Grant no. 453-09-003; MHvIJ: NWO SPINOZA prize).