Childwelfare Gateway: A Psychological Analysis

“Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul.”- Dave Pelzer. Many children are forced to live a life that no one should ever even know exist, these children live in despair and fear, afraid that they may never feel happiness again, afraid that they will be stuck where they are until they lose every piece of themselves and many do, that is when they begin living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul because there is no light at the end of the tunnel not even a flicker of hope. This is often as a result of child exploitation which is described by the legal dictionary as ‘the act of using a minor child for profit, labour, sexual gratification, or some other personal or financial advantage.

(UNICEF, 2016). Childwelfare Gateway helps us to understand that Child sexual abuse can have a multitude of long-term effects on physical health, it can cause impaired brain development where important regions of the brain to fail to form or grow properly and have long-term consequences for cognitive, language, and academic abilities these are connected with mental health disorders (Tarullo, 2012). Child abuse causes the following psychological impairments: low self-esteem, depression, and relationship difficulties, Experiencing childhood trauma and adversity, such as physical or sexual abuse, is a risk factor for borderline personality disorder, depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric disorders. (Childwelfare Gateway, 2013) in an article posted in the Observer on April 22, 2012, it says’ While the physical pain will eventually go away, the shame and trauma of being sexually abused often cling to the abused throughout childhood and even adulthood.’ And that is true, the psychological scars are the hardest to fade. Child pornography is one act that is widespread, this is where children are portrayed as sexual subject matters for the purpose of sexually arousing or satisfying a person. Sexual violence against children is a gross

Children are the future and it is the duty of every adult to make the safety of children their priority, whether it is their children or not. The nation should unite to fight against this disease called child exploitation because if the future of the children are snatched away then there will be no future for anyone because the children are the future. It is time to stand up against child pornography, child sexual abuse, child marriages, child trafficking and all these social ills that come to kill, steal and destroy the future of our precious