CHILD-ABUSE IN THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF THE CHILD

CHILDREN have been documented as victims of violence, neglect, abandonment, slavery, and murder since records of mankind have been kept.1 2 3 Only within the past century has the notion developed that children have rights apart from those that adults choose to grant them. In 1959, the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child stated, “The child shall be protected from all forms of neglect, cruelty and exploitation.”4 The child-welfare movement began in the United States during the middle and late 19th century when the exploitation of children and adults during the Industrial Revolution led to undeniable signs of childhood. © 1979, Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.