According to a report released by the Ministry of Social and Family Development ( MSF ) on Thursday ( Sep 26 ), community agencies saw an increase in child abuse cases with low-moderate risk concerns between 2021 and 2023.
There were 2, 787 like circumstances last month, up 17 per cent from 2, 377 in 2021.
In its debut Domestic Violence Trends statement, MSF defined level 1 cases as those that had minimally concerned about the vulnerable person’s health and danger.  ,
This includes situations where verbal abuse, such as abusive comments, is hardly frequent enough to result in physical or psychological abuse.  ,
Community organizations, including infant security expert centers, protection specialist centers, and family service centers, are in charge of Tier 1 cases.
Classified as “tier 2” are cases that raise serious health and risk issues and call for legal intervention. If a family has inflicted severe injuries on their baby, such as fires or fractures, as an illustration, this would be the case. MSF is in charge of Tier 2 situations.  ,
According to the review, the number of new tier 2 child abuse cases declined substantially by 6 per pence- from 2, 141 cases in 2021 to 2, 011 cases next year. However, this figure , remains higher than , pre-COVID degrees.
This could be a result of people ‘ increased anxiety and issues during the pandemic, according to MSF. However, the government even attributed the higher figures to stepped-up state and community campaigns conducted during this time to raise awareness of domestic violence and child abuse reporting.
The largest percentage of level 1 cases were children between the ages of seven and twelve, while the youngest cases, ages six and above, accounted for the largest proportion of tier 2 cases.
Sun Xueling, the minister of state for cultural and family creation, told reporters that there are many cases of child abuse.  ,
” We observe that physical abuse is the main form of abuse directed at children,” according to the report. We want to increase more public awareness of this and to collaborate with society partners and educators to improve our ability to identify child abuse cases, she said on September 17.
Explaining her agency’s position on corporal punishment, Ms Sun said:” We recognise the role that parents have when it comes to disciplining their children. However, there is a line drawn when that discipline becomes excessively unpleasant, and this can be seen if the child has “open wounds” and “very common” marks of mistreatment.
In such cases, the MSF’s Child Protective Service may investigate the case and take the matter up to the Courts, she added.  ,
” Any form of discipline must be proportionate to the child’s behavior, so we ca n’t tolerate excessive discipline that harms the child,” I believe.
MSF reported that despite various countries, the incidence rate of new level 2 cases remained fairly low at less than three per 1,000 babies. For instance, the recurrence charge was 21 per 1, 000 children in Australia between 2021 and 2022.  ,
” We recognise that some of these cases may never really result in ultimate convictions, but regardless, we encourage reporting because every situation is one case very many”, said Ms Sun.