ADOLESCENTS WITH A HISTORY OF CHILD WORK AT A HIGH RISK OF PHYSICAL & EMOTIONAL ABUSE & COMPROMISED MENTAL HEALTH: RESEARCH
· TEAM OF GLOBAL RESEARCHERS STUDY PREVALENCE & TYPES OF CHILDHOOD MALTREATMENT & ITS LINK WITH MENTAL HEALTH AMONG RESCUED CHILD WORKERS
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· FIRST SUCH STUDY IN INDIAN CONTEXT, EARLIER, NO DATA WAS AVAILABLE IN ASIAN LOWER MIDDLE INCOME COUNTRIES
· STUDY CALLS FOR ACTION TO DEVELOP WIDELY ACCESSIBLE WAYS TO HEAL EMOTIONAL WOUNDS OF CHILD WORKERS
VARANASI, 24.02.2022: Childhood abuse is a major problem of global concern. Previous researches in developed high-income countries have shown that children, who suffered abuse, grow up as adults with poor physical and mental health. However, there are very few published data available addressing these issues in Asian lower-middle income countries, especially in people with a history of child work. A study by an international team of researchers involving those from Banaras Hindu University, King’s College, London, and Brunel University, London, has attempted to fill this gap. The study assessed the prevalenceand types of childhood maltreatment and, for the first time, examined their association with current mental health problems in Indian adolescents with a history of child work.
The results of the study revealed an extremely high risk of extra-familial physical and emotional abuse as well as victimisation in these adolescents, and also reported symptoms of a range of psychiatric disorders, including phobias, dysthymia, depression, generalised anxiety, panic attack, post-traumatic stress disorder, conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and substance abuse.
Professor Rakesh Pandey from Banaras Hindu University, who led the study in North India, said the findings show that child work is associated with a wide range of childhood adverse experiences including abuse, neglect and direct/indirect victimization. “This is important as it has been found out for the first time in the Indian context, that emotional abuse has the most wide-ranging impact of all maltreatment types on mental health and appears to be a transdiagnostic risk factor for several psychiatric disorders”, said Prof. Pandey.
The findings, published in the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry (ANZJP), follow the same researchers' previous work which had examined mental health outcomes in rescued Nepalese adolescents who had a history of childhood maltreatment. This new study focussed specifically on mental health of child workers in north India. India has a huge population of child workers (11.72 million as per thelast Census in 2011), who might be at a very high risk of maltreatment and victimisation due to both the factors that lead them to engage in child work, and the factors associated with it. Professor Veena Kumari from Brunel University London, who previously studied at Banaras Hindu University where the research took place, said “We have found an alarmingly high prevalence of extra-familial physical and emotional abuse in North Indian adolescents with a history of child labour. We must do all we can to prevent children having to suffer abuse or having to work while they should really be at school.” She said “We must also consider emotional abuse in all efforts, including grass root campaigns to raise public awareness, to reduce maltreatment of children, especially those who are from marginalised sectors of the society”.
Prof. Pandey further added, “Our observation of more damaging effects of emotional abuse on children’s mental health call action to develop easy-to-administer and widely accessible interventions to heal the emotional wounds of child workers”.
The researchers are currently engaged in further research to identify the mechanisms through which emotional abuse might confer the risk for psychiatric disorders. Ultimately, their results could lead to novel or more effective interventions for addressing the negative impact of childhood maltreatment on mental health outcomes.
