By Hans Temrin & Johanna Nordlund
Translation: John Mills
In 35 years 258 children in Sweden were
killed by their parents. 23 of them were ill treated to death. Stepchildren
were more often killed by ill treatment than children who were killed by their
biological parents, shows a new study from The University of Stockholm.
|
This
article was previously published in The Daily News (Dagens Nyheter) on May 12, 2006 under
the title "Styvföräldrar misshandlar oftare
barn till döds". "A
child is one hundred times more likely to be abused or killed by a
step-parent than by a genetic parent", write professors Martin Daly and
Margot Wilson in "The Truth about Cinderella". |
258 children under the age of 16 were killed by
their parents between 1965 and 1999. 23 of the children (9%) were abused to
death. Stepchildren are more often killed by abuse than children who are killed
by their biological parents, according to new research from the University of
Stockholm. More than half of the 258 children were killed in connection with a
conflict between the parents e.g. divorce or custody battle. Most of these
children died in connection with the extended suicide where the perpetrator
took or tried to take his own life. The men who murdered their children also
often took the life of their partner. On the other hand, no woman tried to kill
their partner when she murdered the children, writes senior lecturer Hans
Temrin and PhD student Johanna Nordlund at The University of Stockholm.
We have done research into the cases where
children under the age of 16 were killed by their parents in Sweden between the
years 1965-1999. In total, 258 children were killed in 200 cases during these
35 years, in average 7 children a year. More than half of the victims were
under the age of 5 years old (59%, 151 children).
23 of the 258 victims, or 9 %, were killed by
gross abuse.
We have 9 cases in total where the stepparents
murdered their stepchildren. In total 3,5 % of the children were stepchildren,
which not is an overrepresentation in relationship to the proportion of stepchildren in the
population. Stepchildren are on the other hand more often killed by abuse than
children killed by their biological parents. The stepparents, who were perpetrators
in our material, had often a criminal background, were addicts or earlier
convicted for violent crimes.
More than half of the 258 victims were killed
in connection with a conflict between the parents (e.g. divorce or custody
battle) where the direct reason does not seem to be connected to the child.
None of these children were killed by abuse,
like kicks or punches, instead most often by the perpetrator drowning or
strangling the children.
Most of these children died in an extended
suicide where both the partner and the children were killed at the same time.
In more than 65% of the cases the perpetrator
tried to take or took his own life in connection to the crime. The perpetrator
suffered from some kind of mental illness or was deeply depressed in two thirds
of the cases.
This shows that of the children who were killed
by their parents, only a small part of them were killed by lethal violence. [The
prior sentence, though incoherent, is an accurate translation of the Swedish
text.] Stepparents are still over-represented as perpetrators when children
have been abused to death.
A study
performed by Richard Gelles and Ǻke Edfelt in 1986 compared Sweden and the
USA in regard to violence against children. The study showed that Swedish
parents in general use less violence than American parents. This difference was
explained by the relatively new law against corporal punishment.
But when
you compared the violence against children more specifically, there was no
major difference between the countries.
These
results show that child abuse is a phenomenon with different causes.
Unfortunately these results have not been followed up by more comprehensive
research into the different types of child abuse and how they can be explained.
When we tried
to expand our study by a deeper penetration of the causes behind non-lethal
violence against children, we were faced with a host of extenuating
circumstances. For example, it was almost impossible to collect information on
child abuse cases based on court files, without very great resources. The
system that the courts use to sort their data is one in which the verdicts are
registered by case numbers and not depending on the type of verdict. This means
that if one is interested in a certain type of verdict, for eg child abuse, one
has to go through every verdict in order to find those that can be of interest to
research.
Many children suffer because of ill
treatment in Sweden today. We are unaware of how many they are because there is
no systematic research into the matter.
When terrible
cases of calculated violence against children, as in the case with Bobby, make
people upset there will be pressure on the society to take speedy action to
stop this violence. Without more systematic and scientifically based knowledge
there is a risk that these measures will not have the desired effect. More
research into the reasons why children are abused must done in Sweden, so that
we may better understand why and in which contexts children are put at risk.
To begin with there must be easier access to research documents. There also should be some form of more coordinated and continual research into the matter. One method would be to create an institute where all information about children at risk is collected from the social services, hospitals, police and courts. The collected knowledge can be amassed and analysed for reports to the particular authorities as a base for their actions. First then can we make effective decisions that reduce the risks for children in Sweden.
The Truth about Cinderella
By Martin Daly and Margot Wilson