Most child abusers are women: report

...if the so called child protection "experts" and the Courts were honest about this thouasand of kids would still have fathers.

Most child abusers are women: report
9 MSN Wendnesday 11th April 11, 2007.

14:34 AEST

Women are responsible for more than half of all child abuse cases in Queensland and are much more likely to neglect their children than men, a new report has found.

The Child Protection Queensland 2005-06 Performance Report, released on Wednesday, also shows a spike in the number of deaths of children known to child welfare authorities, including death by suicide.

The report shows there were 13,184 substantiated child abuse cases across Queensland in 2005-06.

Women were responsible for 7,319 - or 55.5 per cent - of cases, and males for 5,846, or 44.3 per cent.

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However, the patterns of abuse were found to differ substantially between the sexes.

In 2005-06, females were responsible for 80.2 per cent of all cases of neglect - 3,283 cases compared 799 cases for men.

Women accounted for 46.8 per cent of all cases of emotional abuse, a total of 2,615 cases compared to 2,972 involving men.

Women were also responsible for 48.9 per cent of all cases of physical abuse - 1,358 to compared to 1,412 for men.

However, men were by far the greatest perpetrators of sexual abuse, responsible for 663 cases compared to only 63 by women, or 8.7 per cent.

In only 19 of the 13,184 abuse cases it was not known whether the offender was male or female.

Child Safety Minister Desley Boyle said the findings shattered society's image of the caring and devoted mother and the belief that men were more likely to abuse children.

"We have an idealised image of mothers - that they feed their kids before themselves - but I'm sorry to say, it's not always true," Ms Boyle said.

"Some mothers choose to spend their, albeit meagre, money on cigarettes and alcohol and give healthy food for their children a lower priority."

Emotional harm was the most frequent type of substantiated harm in 2005-06, increasing from 39 per cent of all substantiated cases in 2004-05 to 42.4 per cent in 2005-06.

Children living in single-parent families represented the largest proportion of children subject to substantiated cases, accounting for 38.1 per cent.

Of the children subject to notifications in 2005-06, children aged under five comprised the largest proportion - more than one third.

The report also found deaths of children known to the Department of Child Safety had risen.

In 2005-06, 51 children or young people died - up from 37 the previous year.

Six of those children were subject to child protection orders.

Fourteen deaths were accidental, 18 were from natural causes and in three cases, the cause of death was Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

The cause of death for five children was non-accidental and in four cases the cause of death was suicide.

It is still not known how seven other children died.

Ms Boyle also said the caseload figures per child safety officer had dropped from 32 cases to 21 cases at the end of 2006.