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The Long Term Effects of Child Abuse

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When most people think of “child abuse”, the disturbing news stories of young girls being raped or sexually exploited come to mind but that’s not the only side of it. People seem to only consider physical abuse armful when emotional and mental abuse is just as bad, if not worse. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “abuse” is defined as a corrupt practice or custom. Notice how there’s no specific type of practice or custom mentioned – “physical” does not appear once in this definition. So, why have we redefined this word to mean something that it’s not? If we believe abuse is only a physical corrupt practice or custom then something like brainwashing or verbally harassing a child would have to be considered morally acceptable, right? Wrong. People often overlook emotionally abused children simply because a visible scar isn’t left behind. But child abuse is the violation of any factor of a child's innocence and of the most common examples of child abuse is the indoctrination of children into religion. Now don’t get me wrong, teaching a child about a religion is not harmful in any way but we should never force a child to believe something they may not agree with - that’s not fair to the children. The parents who do this are damaging their kids. A prime example of child abuse through the indoctrination into religion is shown in the 2006 American documentary Jesus Camp. The film centers around Becky Fisher’s evangelic Christian summer camp in Devils Lake,

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