OVER THREE MILLION children in Europe made calls to helplines over 10 years about violence and abuse.

The Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald, has said the newly-released data should be a ‘wake-up call’ and that many of the calls were about abuse at at the hands of family members.

The data was collated from 58 million calls to European child helplines over 10 years and showed that there were 3 million calls regarding violence and abuse, primarily at the hands of family members.

There was also an increase in calls regarding mental health concerns and bullying.

Fitzgerald, who is Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, said that data collated from European child helplines “must act as a wake-up call for policy-makers on the scale of pressures and problems facing Europe’s children and young people and therefore requires an EU-wide response”.

Pressures

The Minister said that “this stark reality highlights the continuing imperative to raise awareness of child protection and to introduce more robust laws and services to protect children from abuse and neglect”.

The Minister was addressing the launch of 10 year data from European child helplines at an event organised by Child Helpline International (CHI) in the European Parliament in Brussels. Minister Fitzgerald was representing the Irish Presidency of the EU.

She said that:

It is vital that policy-makers at both national and EU level reflect on this data and ensure that the key learning filters through to the design and development of integrated child protection systems.

The most common reasons for calls to child helplines over the past 10 years included:

• Mental health concerns – 18 per cent
• Abuse and violence – 18 per cent
• Peer relationships – 15 per cent
• Sexuality and sexual awareness – 12 per cent
• Family relationships – 12 per cent

Mental health concerns showed a dramatic increase between 2008 and 2012 when they made up nearly a quarter (22 per cent) of all contacts.

In addition, two-thirds of physical abuse reports, 43 per cent of sexual abuse reports and 55 per cent of emotional abuse reports involved a family member.

The data also showed that 94 per cent of bullying cases reportedly took place in schools.

Minister Fitzgerald said that today’s event “further reinforces the need for whole-school and community responses, involving government, teachers, parents, youth services and technology providers working together to address the menace of bullying”.

She commended the work of child helplines as “an increasingly important and essential part of our child protection systems”.

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