Child Abuse In Victorian Era Essay

720 Words3 Pages

Following the history of children and their working classes, it is considered to very common in revealing that the history of childhood and youth was remarked to be the new subject that remained hidden for ages. If researching on children is termed to be difficult to find any source material, than we find more hurdles when dealing with the child victims of sexual abuse, and mostly the cases of incest, that is taken to be most hidden topics of all social illness.
Pornography and child prostitution during Victorian era was at peak because of repression of obvious sexuality. With historical accounts relating to sexual abuse, has created large gaps in reporting and incidence rate. Thus children’s sexual exploitation during the era of Victorian …show more content…

Moreover, such activism was encouraged in part through the acceptance of the Romantic idea that children should be taken as innocent creatures and must be protected from the adult world; in fact they must enjoy their time of childhood rather engaging in physical and mental abuse. With this idea various artists and writers started to reflect progressively sentimentalised picture of children depicting them as adorable and angelic qualities. However despite of such active participation and rhetoric, the real reform does not changed quickly (Boone, 2005).

Thesis statement
The study is based on extensive research and reality check regarding child abuse in Victorian era and how society reacted at child’s protection activism by various artist and writers.

Discussion and Analysis It is not very tough to interpret regarding the outraged activism by the writers such as Dickens as an indicative for changing public opinion relating to children’s role. However these protest were supported by various people still there were many who believed that children do not require any protecting shield against adult world. As Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria spoke at many times where he argued that the children of working men were actually a ‘part of their productive power’ and this way they were able to support their family needs (Boone,